SILVANA DIMITRIEVSKA

 

 

History Of Poetry Writing

 

In our family

all our women wrote poetry.

My grandmother used to create luminous threads,

silk thread from the drops of breast milk

with which she then connected the day and

she sewed it to the newborn's eyelids.

That sage knew, from the old traditions,

if the string breaks the child will flie away,

because only children know the secrets and wishes of dreams.

From every drop, my grandmother tied a knot,

 and then she unraveled the threads into verses

and sang them instead of a lullaby.

My mother, on the other hand, inherited all the smells of the word.

With abundant love and measured words

seasoned every kneaded bread,

so the children's eyes opened with each bite

and they could see it

the flight of birds, the blooming of daffodils,

the direction in which the stars’ move

on the map of all our expectations.

From every word my mother created legends,

and then wrapped them in a cloth of verses

to hide the traces of the song.

And me, me in my thoughts, constantly, in every moment

I create one and only poem.

I can imagine her, shape her from dreams,

for the world to recognize as a personal mythology.

In it to collect all the past of poetry.

To make it omnipotent and omnipresent, and to remain unwritten,

because if I ever write it down, history will sign it

with - unknown author.

 

The Walnut Tree

 

The night my grandfather died

I dreamed of the old nut,

it is a branching shoot

and puts down deep roots,

deep under the house in which they were born

all our deceased fathers.

He is a protector, a fire in the hearth, a cradle

in which my grandfather grew up.

There he is, I see him as a newborn,

greedily sucks life

on the old mother's chest.

She tells him legends instead of lullabies,

and defiance dwells in his blood.

It grows like ivy, so it won’t be uprooted

by someone else's hand,

so that the wind does not dry it,

came from an unknown side.

I see his first word and first step.

Then, he is a boy girded with stars.

He is thunder that runs boldly across the meadows.

He leans on the nut, keeps a dove in his chest.

His armpits smell like my grandmother's hair.

The first kiss burns on his lips.

His body is a fire that rises up.

He is a pillar on which the foundation of the house rests.

The night my grandfather died

the stars hid in their nebula,

a deaf and black night hung over the roofs,

the shadows melted with our steps

and no one saw where he was going

and where he was coming from.

***

Today is the funeral.

I sit on the old log and watch

how they lower the walnut coffin

in the depth of the pit.

Starting at my feet, they grow through me

the young shoots that unwaveringly rise.

Involuntarily I notice:

As my grandfather's body passes before me,

the new spring is coming in the clouds behind the house.

 

Silence

 

We gave him a face and a name

We made it real

Then we invited him to the house

We sat him down at the table

We eat with him,

We chew the bite slowly, swallowing.

In the end we called him to bed.

We said to the wishes:

You are monsters

peeking out from under the bed. Ish!

We declared dreams undesirable,

like unwanted strangers.

Because,

who can dream while the world is silent?

 

SILVANA DIMITRIEVSKA

 

SILVANA DIMITRIEVSKA is born in 1981. in Skopje. She graduated from the Faculty of Philology 'Blaze Koneski' - Skopje at the Department of General and Comparative Literature in the Macedonian language, and later she also completed the One-Year School for Journalists at MIM (Macedonian Media Institute). She was the coordinator of the literary circle 'Mugri' and the editor of the poetry almanac of the same name. Silvana is the organizer of several poetry readings and promotions. She is represented in the Anthology of recent Macedonian poetry for young people ‘Purpurni izvori’ by Suzana V. Spasovska, the anthology ‘One Hundred and One Poems’, edited by famous Macedonian poetess Svetlana Hristova Jocić, the collection of poetry and short prose by young people from the former Yugoslav territories ‘Rukopise 30’, an anthology of young people from the former Yugoslav territories ‘Van kutije’, a selection of contemporary Macedonian poetry ‘Sarajevske sveske’, text 'Anthology of contemporary Macedonian poetry' published in the Croatian literary magazine ‘Moguchnosti’ and others. She writes poetry, short prose, essays and haiku verses published in the first Macedonian haiku magazine ‘Mravka’. She is the author of the anthology ‘Angels with five wings’, published as part of Struga Poetry Evenings. She appears as a reviewer of several collections of poetry by young authors. She is the winner of the second and third 'Blaze Koneski' prize for a scientific essay. For his first collection of poetry, ‘You, who came out of a song’, she won one of the most respected national poetry award ‘Aco Karamanov'. She is the winner of several awards at international poetry events in Macedonia and beyond the borders of her country. She is represented in the Collection of Short Literary Forms at the INAKU Institute. For her short story 'Butterfly Skirt' she won the first prize of the contest 'I tell a photo 2021' announced by the Holocaust Fund of the Jews of Macedonia. For the short story 'Water' she won a redemption prize at the New Macedonia Short Story Competition in 2022. She won the third prize at the international poetry festival 'Vigil of Kokinski Mugri 2022'. In 2023, at the international poetry festival for children's poetry 'Verses' she won the second prize, and at the international poetry festival 'Literary Sparks 2023' she won also the second prize. In 2023, she was declared one of the laureates of the prestigious 'Naji Naaman' world prize for poetry and was declared an honorary member of the Academy of Culture of the same name in Lebanon. In 2023, she won the third prize for poetry at the international poetry festival 'Tafil Kelmendi' in Kosovo.