Narcisa Vucina

Author, journalist, lecturer and performer

dannebrog
Vucina våbenskjold

Vucina's crest

Writing out of Exile -

From a Linguistic Point of View

written by Narcisa Vucina


When a writer confronts himself with another country's language and culture he has to go through some phases of learning. It can be difficult, but it can also mean a development, which enriches one's world - both from a linguistic and from a psychological point of view.

Before I came to Denmark in 1973,1 wrote poems and novels. But when, some years later, I began to write poems again, I noticed that I wrote particular poems in my mother tongue (Bosnian/Croatian), and another type of poems in Danish.

Also, I began to »think« in Danish. I felt like a new person. In fact, I noticed that I started to get to know some other sides of myself. I started learning not only about new circumstances and people, but also about another culture and language: a different sense of humour, diverse language references etc. In short, I found myself in another state of mind. I was re-born.

First I had to become nothing, in order to afterwards become »my thing «,a new me. In the beginning, this was hard, but later on I took it as something positive. I could see that I never would have experienced »thenewme« if I hadn't really lived under circumstances other than before for a longer period of time.

I began studying some of the great Danish writers like Karen Blixen, H.C. Andersen and the philosopher Søren Kirkegaard. Different as they may seem, they are all masters of the Danish language. And eventually, I found my own rhythm and onomatopoeic sound, i.e. my own stile. When I write something I don't write in my mother tongue and have it translated or do a translation myself afterwards. I write directly in Danish. If I should write in the language of my origin, I would have written it as a different person. At the moment I only write in Danish.

 

Now I'm waiting for my new book of poetry to be published in Denmark. In this collection of poems there will appear one poem, which I wrote while staying at the Rhodes symposium. Actually, the visitors of the symposium heard it for the first time. Here it is (first the Danish, then the English version):


KATARSIS

en sæbe og en motorvej

en sæbe og en motorvej

sæbe sæbe motorvej

sæbe sæbe motorvej

med sæbe med sæbe sæbe vaske sig

vaske vaske vaske sig rense sig

rejse rejse rejse sig

med bil med bil bil skynde sig

motor motor motorvej motorvej


på Rhodos på Rhodos, en drøm

en drømmevej



CATHARSIS

a soap and a motorway a soap and a motorway

soap soap motorway

soap soap motorway

with soap with soap soap oneself wash oneself

wash wash wash oneself clean oneself

travel travel travel oneself

by car by car car oneself hurry oneself

motor motor motorway motorway


on Rhodes on Rhodes, a dream

a dream way

bog6s

©  2000 The editor and Podium


ISBN 91-89196-18-x