BLACKOUT POETRY FROM THE TIME OF THE UNIVERSITY PURGE
(2010-2012)
My first blackout poems were mostly done on documents of the faculty and university leadership, as they were full of lies and sometimes totally freakish. In the terrible events of life, it often happens that frightening moments are at the same time indescribably funny, absurd and inspirative. Looking at our own misfortune from the outside saves us – it is tool to find equillibrium by humor and creativity, that is a capability to insert distances, but at the same time it is also a sign of fundamental delocalization (from the unsupportable reality) as a defense mechanism. During the university purge in Koper, I made over 60 blackout poetry sheets, which at the time represented a release of tension for me, but as a whole they form today another kind of testimony to the existence of a humorous fringe to the real in the period of extremely harsh university purge.
Even though some of the codes and abbreviations are illegible or do not have the same meaning outside the context of the purge (by then, for example, everybody knew what DD or tukla or nikolinička represents ...), I think that the key line of paradox and the value inversion that ran us over like a tank, is somewhat still evident in the poems below. The students and our friends had a lot of fun with them.
From my (as yet unpublished) archive, I am offering you, dear reader, five of them here.
And yes, alas, they cannot be in any language other than Slovenian.
(2010-2012)
My first blackout poems were mostly done on documents of the faculty and university leadership, as they were full of lies and sometimes totally freakish. In the terrible events of life, it often happens that frightening moments are at the same time indescribably funny, absurd and inspirative. Looking at our own misfortune from the outside saves us – it is tool to find equillibrium by humor and creativity, that is a capability to insert distances, but at the same time it is also a sign of fundamental delocalization (from the unsupportable reality) as a defense mechanism. During the university purge in Koper, I made over 60 blackout poetry sheets, which at the time represented a release of tension for me, but as a whole they form today another kind of testimony to the existence of a humorous fringe to the real in the period of extremely harsh university purge.
Even though some of the codes and abbreviations are illegible or do not have the same meaning outside the context of the purge (by then, for example, everybody knew what DD or tukla or nikolinička represents ...), I think that the key line of paradox and the value inversion that ran us over like a tank, is somewhat still evident in the poems below. The students and our friends had a lot of fun with them.
From my (as yet unpublished) archive, I am offering you, dear reader, five of them here.
And yes, alas, they cannot be in any language other than Slovenian.
FIRST
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SECOND
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THIRD
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FOURTH
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FIVE
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BLACKOUT POETRY FROM MY LAST POETRY BOOK IN SLOVENIA (2014)
I loved making the blackout poetry during the purge, so I continued. I included some of the latter poems, made already in Paris, in my last Slovene poetry book.
© Taja Kramberger, V tvojem objemu je prostor zame [In Yourn Embrace, There’s a Place for Me], 2014
© Taja Kramberger, V tvojem objemu je prostor zame [In Yourn Embrace, There’s a Place for Me], 2014
© Taja Kramberger, V tvojem objemu je prostor zame [In Yourn Embrace, There’s a Place for Me], 2014
© Taja Kramberger, V tvojem objemu je prostor zame [In Yourn Embrace, There’s a Place for Me], 2014