Antiwar Songs and a Song of Love - Poetry by Diana Rosandic - 1/3
Had I not felt the sadness and fear of soldiers, the anti war poems could not be written.
Q: Would you like to tell about yourself, when and how you begun to write, about excitement of your first published poems...?
Diana: I went to school in Germany the first two grades and when my family and I returned to Rijeka, I had to learn whole new alphabet anew. I grew to love reading and writing through reading comics like Alan Ford and Captain Mark. I was so in love with writing that when I learned the alphabet finally, all I could do was write and breathe. I filled my diaries and wrote and wrote, because it made me feel good.
Already in elementary school I received awards for my writing and art work. At ten I wrote a short prose "The boys from the planet Ara" which is still remembered today. From then on, I always wrote and drew. It was my passion! As I matured, my style became more sophisticated which culminated when the Croatian Prose Committee awarded me with the award for my poems and my first published Book of Abstracts.
But I was not ready yet to publish a book of poems of my own, not until my poems became deep. Then at thirty something "The Rock of Poets" was published in 1994. Some of those poems inspired authors to write music and make them into songs for radio programs and operas. Many were translated to other languages. For me, poetry means true expression.
Q: How do you remember your childhood?
Diana: A bit hectic, full of packed suitcases either leaving or returning. But as I loved adventures, I knew no better and thought everyone had a childhood just like me. I wrote about it in my autobiographic novels. I now think it was a childhood full of joy and happiness. I would skip school to run off to sea, or just walk on the edge of a train rail, or top of the sky scraper, just to feel alive and to write poems. I also ate raw fruit without catching a disease. I adored Pippi Long Stockings, but did not have a horse and my father was not a pirate but a sailor.
I knew I had to do something with the talent I was blessed with. And that was the recipe to conquer the world, even before realizing that the world has conquered me. One has to love the life, hope and the world! I learned at a very young age, that after the mud and rain, the sun shines. In my writings am trying to give hope and show the reader that behind the hill is a beautiful rainbow. And even if you do not see it yet, you can smell it and look there it is. I try to show that there is a beautiful side to life. Once the reader realizes that he/she is standing under the rainbow, I consider it success, while a pessimist would call it an illusion.
Q: What was the inspiration for your collections of poetry "Antiwar Songs and a Song of Love"?
Diana: When former Yugoslavia fell apart, my prose stayed behind. When Croatia entered the warm I could not find words to express myself. I went numb. It just piled up in me and even when the war ended, I still could not find the words.
Then in 2003, I found myself in Frankfurt, just when the war in Iraq begun and could not write a word it either. I watched on television the poor people, bombings, all the misery of war, conquests and thought about the war in Croatia. All of a sudden, an antiwar feeling in me begun to grow. I had an inspiration and all I could do was cry and write, write and cry!
The collection is about a male character, who does not know what is he doing and who is he fighting, and for what reason. The only thing he cares is war isn't love. But if he had not been there he would t have realized all he cared about was love.
Q: These are themes about moments where each word is important, moments which are decisive...?
Diana: Every poem forms an intimate world of warrior-soldier-looser because injustice can be concealed, leave physical and spiritual wounds, but does not go away until it is forgotten. My "inner soldier" who chose to speak did not forgive hate and evil just yet. That was his process of healing from poem to poem. He didn't` t come after the evil but also the ones who didn't` t know the fear of fighting. Many things remain hidden with indifference because that is important in proving your own disability and helplessness, but I left enough marks between the lines, so the true emotions could come out.
Q: Decisive moment for - change...?
Diana: That " imaginary soldier" of mine does not have many options because the only thing he was trained for, is to fight. Much money was spent on his education and training, big efforts were made to make him loyal to the cause, government and state.
Of course, it is no one interest, that he would became sentimental with feelings such love and wanting a home. Every "war dog" is faced with the challenge of accepting defeat or making sure that his position is secured in a safe place.
To me as a mother and a woman, as a person in love with nature, beauty, animals, it is hard to accept the fact that humanity still cannot find love and peace to make justice conquering the evil. Because there is always someone who wants to rule someone else. The pray needs to be shared. You need to rule.
Seems, that we have not yet reached that stage where we can give place to others before ourselves. And children rights should be more important. How much longer we shall force them to be stable, muscular and strong individuals. Every man has free will, a priceless gift, which gives him the ability to choose right from wrong. The Earth hasn't split into two parts - yet. There still is an opportunity to change the world. As they say, hope dies last.
Q: What messages are hidden in those words?
Diana: In the poem "A woman healer of war who cuts herbs with a long machete", I present Madame Death in a tempting edition loose fulfilled with Eros or healer, and graphically present her movement. That is in fact a disclosure through words and signs because it ends with a dot. It has lost in translation, but it is very well understood in Croatian. It was important to paint the imaginary to get the wholeness. I did not want to hide the meaning of Death, when all becomes void. These poems carry anxiety and tension in which emotions were developed gradually, from verse to verse. The strongest fear of death is masked with an indifferent tone rather than a scream. If I had not felt the sadness and fear of soldiers, the Anti war poems could not be written.
There are still questions to be answered. For example, the title of a chapter in this collection is "War is peace who lost itself on the way and met somebody else ". Are we willing to give up our bad or dark side or not? We all have it! I would like to ask further, can we love others more than ourselves, learn to forgive, honor one and other, tolerate, to experience joy, smile with an open heart..?.
Q: In what circumstances were those poems written, do they have an interesting background, did you write them in piece behind your computer or woke up during the night...?
Diana: I never write without inspiration. When I get inspired I write by hand never computer.
To be continued
Excerpts from Antiwar Songs and a Song of Love
HANDS OFF HATE
May the sunlight touch your shoulder like a friend
may the wind hasten your pace when you're in a hurry
a kind word I say in your behalf will open the door for you
There are games in which you can bleed to boot
diminish your magnitude
enlarge your smallness
and the wind's elation carries combed grasses
blood isn't a poppy and a flower doesn't sprout from ashes
the heart becomes an urn too heavy to carry
AM I REAL, ANGEL?
And when you think that I'll fall
smile above the crust of the red rays of sunshine
that touch my lips because my face
is ever less a geography of hope
a naļve expectation of some enlightened book
into which everybody's name is entered
By the way: Can you read, dear angel?
Tell me, am I real after all?
BOOK REFERENCE:
Diana Rosandic, Antiratne i jedna ljubavna - Antiwar Songs and a Song of Love, Croatian - English, Published by Croatian Writers Association, Rijeka, Croatia, 2004
ABOUT DIANA ROSANDIC
Diana Rosandic is award-winning poetess and author from Croatia. She writes poetry for adults and children. From 1996, she is member of Croatian Writers Association and from 2000, member of Free lance Artists Association. Her writings are translated into Slovene, English, German and Spanish language.
Image: Book cover Antiwar Songs and a Song of Love by Diana Rosandic.
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