Reviewed by: Bangladeš: Manifest Kvantumizma [Bangladesh: Quantumism Manifest] by Enes Halilović Biljana D. Obradović Enes Halilović Bangladeš: Manifest Kvantumizma [Bangladesh: Quantumism Manifest] Novi Pazar: Edicija Sent, 2019. Pp. 86. ISBN 978-86-7490-045-1 The newest collection of poems in Serbian, published in the Latin alphabet,1 Bangladeš, by the Bosniak2 Serbian poet, Enes Halilović (b. 1977), includes some sixty pages of a continuous, experimental poem, with 5–6 parts, including the final, Quantumism3 Manifesto at the end. His poetry here can be characterized as experimental and surreal. It includes few capital letters at the beginning of sentences but does include punctuation to designate the end of sentences, indentations, parentheses, often just opening ones, placed at the beginning of empty lines, and with blank lines which represent stanza breaks. This “book is an analysis and synthesis of all world poetry”, seen through Halilović’s eyes, as he says in a recent interview for Letopis Matice Srpske (1). This long poem is Halilović’s ars poetica—we must continue to write poetry despite all the forces that are trying to prevent us from doing it. The poem begins with the speaker wondering if he could go and visit Bangladesh. Why Bangladesh specifically—because it reminds him of poetry itself with such a large population, he says in the same interview (1). A letter arrives and someone is inviting him to go there (5). So he does and arrives with “a big bird which has agreed to deliver him as an [End Page 199] egg” (5), a rather surreal image explaining how he flew there. There are a lot of people, a great mass of people, great humidity, rain … (5). He then gives us “instructions on how to read this book”, recalling Gilgamesh and Hercules, whose travels lead them to hell (7). All the speaker’s enemies unite under one flag, and he is on the flag as well, but then he abandons them and they him (8). His hand still, however, continues to hold a pen firmly and he continues to write. Then, “One day bread knocks on his door”, another surreal image (9). He says that “What he has to say is like a curse” (9), but whoever wishes to follow him must know that he is not a tour guide, so they better beware and not believe anything he is about to say; he’s an unreliable narrator. Still, birds appear on his window to eat bread crumbs (10). He doesn’t understand anything, yet he doesn’t ask anyone for explanations (10). They may “spit at him in the medias”, if he asks for someone’s help (10). He asks controversial questions, like why someone has killed, why another walks in a forest filled with snakes which bite people who then die (10–11). Some of the sections of the poem use familiar forms such as Whitmanesque lists/catalogues, as in this section with “i met” as anaphora, with the repeating phrase at the beginning of each line, in which he also uses personification: i met a year. it turned into a month.i met a moon. it turned into a week.i met a week. it turned into a day.i met a day.4 (11) Thinking of the mass of people living in Bangladesh, and the poverty of the country itself, which is ever-present, he speaks of how crematoriums could get rid of the congestion of people (alluding to Nazis and the Holocaust), or through natural disaster, as people die from monsoon flooding, famines, earthquakes, locusts, wars, rats, disease (Covid19) … yet some people manage to live as long as 108 years (12). The chance of survival is slim. He continues with instructions on “How to Use Darkness” (14). Fearing him all will disappear; from light, darkness will fall, he says. But once your eyes adjust, things will begin to reappear (become clear) if you wait, as, “i am older than you, waiting says” (15). Here as in many other instances he personifies “waiting” and later Bangladesh itself (16), a figure of speech he uses often. He shows us images of the country, with rice paddies, tigers, and its capital, Dhaka, with beautiful...
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Mar 6, 2021
José Manuel Amigo + 4
Open Access
