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Oddball
He does not live as others do.
With clouded look, eyes riveted,
he walks the threshold of the lost
and with new meaning burdens it.
Aco Šopov, The Wind Carries Beautiful Weather, 1957
Translated from the Macedonian by Christina E. Kramer and Rawley Grau, The Long Coming of the Fire, Dallas, Deep Vellum, 2023.
The highest level of poetic innovation that Šopov achieves is manifested through the process of interiorizing the lyrical subject. This is vividly illustrated in the rarely mentioned, yet remarkably complex, lyrical miniature The Oddball, which lends itself to the most diverse hermeneutic interpretations. Written with exceptional creative focus and emotional intensity, it reveals the position of both the lyrical and the creative subject as simultaneously earthly and cosmic, establishing an ontological magnetism between the being of poetry and the creative being.
The creative being must penetrate the meaning of the being of poetry, for the experience of the poem precedes that of the poet, as poets themselves assert. It is within this immersion, in this intimate dialogue with poetry, that the depth of the poetic voice is revealed, and the ontological essence of the poet comes to light. — R. Ivanović, "The Energy of Poetic Discourse", Nova Makedonija, 21.9.1994 (in Macedonian)