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Other Words Literary evening with Anja Golob
26.01.2018 20:00

Friday, 26 January 2018, at 8 p. m.
MMC KIBLA

You are hereby cordially invited to attend a literary evening with Anja Golob, poet, critic, dramaturge, editor and winner of two Jenko Poetry Prize awards. The event will take place on Friday, 26 January 2018, at 8 p. m. at the MMC KIBLA in Maribor.

Poetry writing has long since ceased to be just a hobby to Anja Golob. Her approach to poetry is an uncompromising one. Truly so. For her, creative work is not about cutting corners. She reads extensively to understand the deeper sense of poetry. She is annoyed by poets who approach poetry writing under a pretense and not for the sake of poetry itself.

She realizes, as she puts it in her poem Hobi (Hobby), that we need to "...look things straight / in the eye, actually / especially when they burn / it just takes courage care / nothing random there / a sense of humor / bloody grit, a fight, in sum / whoever isn't up to it / should not skulk around poetry / they're not getting any / not even by mistake / she may be a whore / but she's not dumb (like politics) / she is not a ho ho hobby ...". The effort Anja Golob puts in writing has not gone unnoticed by the readers or the literary circles. Her second poetry collection Vesa v zgibi (Bent Hang) has won her the Jenko Poetry Award in 2014. She received the same award two years later, in 2016, for her next collection Didaskalije k dihanju (Stage Directions to Breathing).

This "mind-blowingly talented poet", as she has been labeled by the Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung, has inspired many, not necessarily great poetry lovers, to read poetry. Vesa v zgibi (Bent Hang) was sold out immediately, and Golob saw to it herself that it was reprinted. Didaskalije k dihanju (Stage Directions to Breathing) was originally self-published in 400 copies, and also had to be reprinted. Perhaps part of the attraction of her poetry lies in the fact that she invented an approach to bring poetry closer to the contemporary reader. In some of her poems, namely, though not in all of them, her language, compared to the imperviousness and self-sufficiency of most of today's poetry, is "down-to-earth" and approachable. With a refined sense for the rhythm of language; with unconventional but persuasive metaphors and the occasional clever twist at the end of a poem, she knows how to show the reader the way into the world of poetry, yet never at the expense of reducing quality or lyricism.

In terms of form and subject matter her poems vary, although the collections are related to one another. The poem V molčeča srca rož zapisujem (Into the silent hearts of flowers I write) was born out of a phrase that has long since stirred her imagination. Her poetry also reveals images from the world of science, popular culture and high literature, which the author uses to comment on human nature. She is convinced that "poetry can stand up to the capitalist logic of our time. I am, however, very sorry that many people fail to recognize this." Poetry, as it were, is a time-stopper. It also calls for a consideration about the state of society today, and the role of the individual in the society. Anja Golob sees her poetry as spurring from the same nest out of which her more activist texts are inspired, through which she addresses social issues. According to the author, the fight for human rights should never stop, since today, in an era of conservative revolution, even rights that have already been won are often at stake.

Poet Anja Golob is also a constant critic of the (Slovene) society, politics, and culture. In 2013 she co-founded a small publishing house VigeVageKnjige. The publishing house specializes in Slovene translations of graphic novels for both children and adults.

Anja Golob (1976) is a poet and co-founder of a small publishing house VigeVageKnjige, where she is currently working as its editor-in-chief. On occasion she works as a publicist, translator and dramaturge. After studying philosophy and comparative literature at the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana (Slovenia), she worked as a theatre critic for twelve years, mainly publishing in Večer, the second biggest Slovene daily. Up to date she has published three collections of poetry: V roki (In the Hand; Litera, Maribor, 2010), Vesa v zgibi (Bent Hang; Mladinska knjiga, Ljubljana, 2013), Didaskalije k dihanju (Stage Directions to Breathing; self-publishing, Ljubljana, 2016). The second and third were awarded the Jenko Poetry Prize (2014, 2016), while a selection of thirteen poems from her second book was published in 2015 in German under the title of ab und zu neigungen (here and there leanings / aversions and affections), by the hochroth publishing house from Vienna. This year, hochroth from Munich, Germany, is publishing a booklet entitled Taubentext. Vogeltext., with a poem in six parts, which was created over a period of more than a year via e-mail correspondence with German writer and poet Nikolai Vogel. Two translations of her collection Stage Directions to Breathing are also awaiting publication, the Croatian translation will be published by Sandorf, and the German by Edition Korrespondenzen.

More: www.anjagolob.org

Photo: Igor Modic

Literary evenings held at the MMC Kibla are part of the project Other Words and offer a unique selection of Slovene and international authors.
 Info:
Tonja Jelen jelen.tonja@gmail.com 
and 
Peter-Tomaz.Dobrila@x-op.eu

Production: X-OP Association for Contemporary Art
Co-production: Association for Culture and Education KIBLA, Association for Arts and Audio-Visual Production CODE BLUE

Support: Municipality of Maribor, Ministry of Culture, Employment Service of Slovenia, Ministry of Labor, Family, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities

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