The writer and the river, the river and the writer

Your eyes are dreamy, the end of your gaze is beyond reach. What are you thinking about, what do you long for, where is your soul sailing now, and for what, my dear?

Perhaps for the stolen cornfield, for the felled forests, for some corner you may never see again, or perhaps never will, and yet it's your piece of paradise, an escape from reality and such a life? No, you're not escaping, and don't be ashamed; every soul has its harbor where it would anchor and stay forever.

No, you don't need hundreds of pages to tell or teach the world. Don't misunderstand me, weaving a work of great magnitude is a significant skill. But there are those who say everything through a minimum that hundreds of pages cannot. The power of one sentence is sometimes mightier than a whole library. That's why poets are rare beings, those who in a verse, stanza, or poem on one page say everything they truly desire. Glory to them all, to those who truly want to say something, something not meant for the one-time use of the market. No one who truly creates should do that. Don't bow down to market demands.

Mind and soul write, not the global village of demand. In such a world, readers don't return to a book; they just need quantity to fill their empty time. A writer is not someone who serves such people, no matter how much money those who publish and those who read are willing to pay. NO SENTENCE OF THOSE WHO CREATE SINCERELY HAS A PRICE AND DOES NOT BELONG TO THE MARKET, NOR TO THE FALSE READER.

I'm not saying to anyone that we, the creators, are a special breed. On the contrary, we are flawed and ordinary, transient and vain like any being on this planet. Just that the search and digging for truth, whether dressed in stylistic disguises or in direct impact, require the whole being, squeezing everything out of the one who writes with such a goal.

Those who create to be pitied, to be admired, to be adored, to get rich, to be mentally purified, out of therapeutic motives, they belong on the shelves of quantity. Quality can be present, but with such and many other desires, it is reduced to the minimum of minimums.

Have I searched for perfection, refined my writings, the first, second, third, and countless drafts? No. I'm not perfect, I don't strive for the impossible, for we are humans, and everyone's path of creation began with mistakes and wandering in delusions. Just that the delusions of this mind are not hidden; they are in the light of this river for people to read and see how and where and to what my creation traveled and aspired through imperfection, mistakes, and delusions.

The star of Jovan Jovanović Zmaj has illuminated the river; the eagle of Đura Jakšić circles above us, guarding and fighting with us for freedom; the Dead Sea of Radoje Domanović is no more; it is proud, I believe, because, no matter how much the shores try, the river of this people is alive. The sea has detached from us... "Pokondirene tikve" are on the shores; thanks for that to Jovan Sterija Popović, Branko's farewell and his pale breasts are also in these chests. Who hasn't loved yet? Who doesn't have fulfilled or unfulfilled love somewhere, a love that truly resides in the chest? Art is knowing how to love the brightest skirts, for which thanks to Laza Kostić. Ministers, suspicious faces, municipal officials, greedy relatives, disappeared and then found but unwelcome, other people's works for fake doctorates—everything is shining today, and the eyes of Branislav Nušić. The blue graves are still filling with the bodies and souls of this people; in one of them, the body and work of Milan Rakić sail. Dark vilayets, cursed courtyards, bridges that connect and separate, guarding the truth about human destinies, miserly people dying in the madness of their selfishness, signs that even in the greatest fog give us direction—all of this exists today and survives while the spirit of Ivo Andrić hovers from the depths or somewhere around us.

So expelled, pressed into the beloved river, under the attack of merciless forces, many of us, somewhere far away, with constant migrations, fighting those who would like to subdue us, to exterminate us, we live with our city in the prose and poetry of Miloš Crnjanski. Desanka Maksimović reminds us with a bloody fairytale who we are, where we come from, and what we have given and what conquerors have taken from us. With Milan Lalić, we wander along this river like a forest, as the lost warrior wandered, and we fight to find a way and an exit from our own fears, delusions of the mind, surrounded by drivers.

Yes, some of us can no longer bear injustice, losses, blows from all sides, pandemic shock therapy of lies, so rage seizes us, and in it, with us, is the work and sharp mind of Borislav Pekić. There are fewer and fewer children; loneliness prevails, and individual selfishness, but new shoots are still growing, who, by the stream and flower, love childhood just as Ljubivoje Ršumović loves it, giving eternal verses of joy to those who have come and are coming. Šantić's love flows down our faces with tears; many spend the holiday evening alone with memories and their birds that love them and sing a song for all lonely souls. A small tree with a hanging great poet, both in body and spirit, floats along the river, and she awakens somewhere while conquering and purifying the river's poison with her scent, although we don't wish to awaken her, forgive us for waking up, Miljković, and know that the heavy and truthful word still kills the same and will continue to do so. It is ours not to fear words spoken or written; it is theirs to shoot, bark, suffocate, persecute, and imprison. Ancient druids, merging forests and rivers, shores filled with oak trees where one learns, poetry is written on the tree bark, masculinity is acquired, the mind is strengthened, and the soul is enriched, have ended up like firewood or expensive furniture. Only we who dive to the bottom see those trunks that found their rest and peace in the depths. But we cannot read in decay the record of a vanished people. Perhaps this reminds us not to create so that after parting with the body, we are crowned with the wreath of eternal glory because no civilization, no matter how long it lasts, no people, no library, no reward, nothing that humans create and receive, can resist the hand and judgment of time.

No matter how much we have poisoned this world, water, air, and soil, it will outlive us, and other beings will be able to do what we cannot: drink our poison, inhale our deadly gases, live on the earth that serves us humans most for relentless exploitation without a trace of desire to preserve or purify something from nature of which we are not masters but only parts. Have the enlightened creators of the literary world taught us in their works that this planet is given to us to exploit, and it will always be given to us even though we mercilessly seize everything that doesn't belong to us? Does love, compassion, patriotism, memory, pride, and shame still live in us? Yes, just as all creators who, through hundreds of pages or in a poem, with one sentence or one word, have left signs beside all the paths we walk today. Who can't see that? Who would like to forget them or appropriate and snatch them from the people? The elite from the shores. In the river? In the river above, our eyes tremble with the love of our souls and their works, and the works of all creators, from all epochs, directions, and styles that implore the mighty and tyrants for mercy for us, the mighty ones despised and repugnant, who burned for the truth and fell into the merciless hands of various executioners while fighting for it.

Is my writing bad, my dear? It's bad and unnecessary if it can't speak the language of truth. I strive, with all my flaws, to seek at least a part of it, unadorned, undressed, not colored by the lies and deceptions of the coastal elite. If you find the truth before me? Genuine writing knows no envy; it does not let such baseness in. I will bow to you with the deepest depths of my soul, a pure heart, and a mind ready for your truth and everyone's truth that truly is.

Igor Tintor

The writer and the river, the river and the writer