World's leading poets gather in Macedonia

31/08/2009

The international festival has promoted poetry for nearly half a century.

By Zoran Nikolovski for Southeast European Times in Skopje -- 31/08/09

The recitals took place on a bridge over the Crn Drim River. [Getty Images]

About 150 poets from around the world participated in this year's renowned Struga Poetry Evenings (SPE) in Macedonia.

Tomaz Salamun, a Slovenian poet who lives and works in the United States, won this year's Golden Wreath of Poetry.

"Struga Poetry Evenings and Macedonia, since the first time I was invited to come to this eminent poetry gathering in 1967, has become my home," he said.

"It is crystal clear to us poets that Macedonia and the Struga Poetry Evenings have been the core, the living source and the guardians of the dignity of our profession for almost 50 years," Salamun added.

This year's SPE theme was "music and poetry". Struga opened with a public reading of "Longing for the South", a poem by Macedonian modernist Konstantin Miladinov, accompanied by pianist Simon Trpceski.

Programmes, such as the "Night without Punctuation", were mixed with Macedonian ethno-band performances.

The Bridges of Struga Award, bestowed by UNESCO for the world's best debut poetry book, went to the young Senegalese poet Usman Sar-Sarus.

Macedonian poet Vesna Acevska won the Miladinov Brothers Award for her book of poetry, Stolisnik. The award for Macedonian diaspora poets went to Mark Shobolev, for his book Poems from a Foreign Land.

A poetry caravan, called Poetry on the Road, allowed visiting poets to tour and recite poetry in other Macedonian towns as well. "Here I have felt as an incredibly respected poet," Syrian poet Maram al-Masri explained. "Everybody has had a chance to be in touch with audiences, to read to the audiences."

Struga Poetry Evenings started in 1962 with a series of public readings by a number of Macedonian poets in honour of Konstantin and Dimitar Miladinov, 19th century Macedonian prophets, writers and teachers.

Over the years, the event has awarded prizes to some of the world's leading poets, including Nobel laureates Eugenio Montale, Pablo Neruda and Joseph Brodsky.

Every year, SPE organisers publish a series of books to promote poetry by foreign authors to Macedonian audiences, as well as thematic anthologies of contemporary Macedonian poetry in English. A ten-volume edition featuring the first ten winners of Struga Poetry Evening's "Miladinov Brothers" Award was completed this year in several languages.

"Preserve the Struga Evenings," said this year's Golden Wreath winner, Salamun. "They are a world treasure."