tea ivkovic

A woman faces the imminent loss of a friend — or rather, a family member. That companion is a dog, and the woman is a poet. The author’s highly distinctive poetics — characterized by fragmented images distilled to their essential, defining elements and a discourse of negotiation (“negotiating for words” — to paraphrase another prominent Croatian poet — but also for meaning and security in an often senseless and uncertain world) — are particularly well-suited for verbalising this experience, which is at once universal and deeply personal. It is only seemingly paradoxical that this text, primarily concerned with impermanence, revolves around endurance: nature, seasonal rhythms, life, and death are all processes inseparable from time and its inherent illogicalities — its varying paces, pauses, and sudden leaps. Sanja Lovrenčić’s new collection fits naturally into the All Things Alive series, serving as a poetic chronicle of a farewell, an attempt to accept the unacceptable, and a profound, multi-layered tribute to the bonds we share with our animal companions — bonds inextricably intertwined with our own habits, daily lives, hopes, sense of security, and even our very identities.