Poetry by Tomislav Raum

My poetry is like a wound which can be seen.

The Poetry to Enlightenment

I ask the reader not to close his mind before the difficulties involved in this kind of poetry occure.

My Poems are like nightlights, small light sources, placed for enlightenment indoor dark areas or areas that become dark at certain times.

You can start to see the clarity of night.

So, What is This About?

I have published my poetry exclusively in a digital form.

All these poems are translated from Croatian and some of constructions could be for a bit clumsy. I would appreciate if you mark some of lousy translated lines.

Poetics

The poet must not succumb to the illusion of improving mankind. He reveals the world by metaphors. "Why?s" and "What do you mean?s" - questions I fear can't be answered.

My literary work is constitutionally fated to suffer from a quiet melancholic malaise. The distance between present and past, the gap between words and images can never be closed. In Sigmund Freud's formulation, it is melancholy, or unresolved mourning, that keeps the wound open.

You can feel the pain around the words of this poetry. Nothing throws the ball into the court of the living as death. Closure plays into the wall and who has to decide when the game is over?

Why Read Poetry?

Why to read? What writing can do for those who read it?

I don't try to cover any historical period of literature. I only want people to discover that reading poetry can be an experience. What kind of experience?

The best poetry is the kind that takes me someplace unexpected and makes me see the world in a completely new way.

While poets argue among themselves about the relative virtues of "accessible" and "cutting edge," many people have stopped listening, stopped reading, stopped believing that most contemporary poetry makes a difference.

For me, when it comes to poetry, the only criterion that matters is this: does the poem give me something I need to have; does it tell me something I need to know; does it crook its metaphorical finger and lead me some place I've never been, but recognize instantly? If it does those things, it doesn't much matter if it's plainspoken or abstruse. I'm following, I'm listening, I'm reading poetry books.

I must say I hated poetry some years ago when I started writing poetry to get through a difficult period in my life.

One day this poems will be a historical curiosity; that day is not today.