Dejan Stojanovic
Dejan Stojanovic was born in Pec, Kosovo (the former Yugoslavia), in 1959. Although a lawyer by education, he has never practiced law and instead became a journalist. He is a poet, essayist, philosopher, former journalist, and businessman.
Books of poetry: Circling, The Sun Watches the Sun, The Sign and Its Children, The Shape, The Creator, Dance of Time, THE WORLD IN NOWHERENESS (A PENTALOGY) - [Ozar, The World and God, The World in Nowhereness, The World and Humans, The Home of Light]. The Hidden Light, Primordial Spark, Centuries and Steps.
Books of Essays: Creator and Creating, The New Man and the New World.
Anthology: Selected Serbian Plays.
In 1986, as a young writer, he was recognized among 200 writers at the Bor (former Yugoslavia) Literary Festival. He also received the prestigious Rastko Petrovic Award from the Society of Serbian Writers for his book of interviews with major European and American artists and writers.
In addition to poetry and prose, he has worked as a correspondent for the Serbian weekly magazine Pogledi (Views). His book of interviews from 1990 to 1992 in Europe and America, entitled Conversations, included interviews with several major American writers, including Nobel Laureate Saul Bellow, Charles Simic, and Steve Tesic.
He has been living in Chicago since 1990.
THEY SAID ABOUT THE WORLD IN NOWHERENESS
“(The World in Nowhereness offers) the joy of cognition due to discoveries worthy of the Nobel prize…”
— Milan Lukić
"When I got my hands on Dejan Stojanović's book The World in Nowhereness, I was amazed and read the book with great pleasure. I didn't even believe that there is someone today who could write such a long poem, an epic, as if I opened to read the Iliad, in our time. I recommend this book to all who are believers in poetry because faith in poetry is the same as faith in eternity and eternal life."
— Matija Bećković
“The World in Nowhereness is Dejan Stojanović’s utopian absolute book, a kind of a Mallarméan absolute. An absolute story, or an absolute book, according to Borges, is a desert-like book: sandy, grainily unforeseeable, and corpuscularly innumerable… It is simultaneously a vision and a chimera. Isn’t that precisely why we long for an absolute book? The World in Nowhereness by Dejan Stojanović is, in his way, an embodiment of that dream.”
— Srba Ignjatović
“I have always wondered, even about my poetic work, what a total poem is… Can the pentalogy by Dejan Stojanović be called a total poem, one that every poet of note has dreamed about since the time of Homer? I felt such impulses while reading The World in Nowhereness. This is an absolute poem, of an absolute system of thought that reaches across the totality of our civilizational legacies.”
— Duško Novaković
"Exactly 17 years ago, in the last year of the 20th century, I came across the work of Dejan Stojanović, and then I wrote a text from which I will extract a few sentences. “Dejan Stojanović, in the last two years, made a real feat, he published six books, except for one, all books of poetry.” This first five-book collection was published in the last year of the 20th century, and here we are now with the five-book collection in the XXI century, nearing the end of the second decade. And then I also wrote the following: “Stojanović is a poet who searches for the perfect poetic form because at the same time he searches for the absolute meaning of human existence.” Whether it was a hunch or not, there is the Pentalogy and there is that word, that concept – an absolute, an absolute book, an absolute poem that could be sensed even in that first pentalogy."
— Aleksandar Petrov (January 17, 2018)
"The World in Nowhereness is primarily the result of great literary ambition and faith in literature." — Muharem Bazdulj
“It is beautiful to express love and even more beautiful to feel it.”
“It is beautiful to talk about beautiful things and even more beautiful to silently gaze at them.”
“To understand possible means to understand impossible.”
“Based on the law of probability Everything is possible because The sheer existence of possibility Confirms the existence Of impossibility.”
“I visited many places, Some of them quite Exotic and far away, But I always returned to myself.”
“When I want to be reminded of stupidity, especially my own, I turn on the TV.”
“A star needs a star.”
“I imagined I was God for a millisecond And became speechless for a long time.”
“We traveled long and forgot why poetry was invented.”
“Every man needs his Siren To check his courage and strength When he hears her song In his travels through the unknown.”
“To expect to be kissed having bad breath is the secret of a fool.”
“Words rich in meaning can be cheap in sound effects.”
“To go where no one else has ever gone before is the secret of heroism.”
“To risk life to save a smile on a face of a woman or a child is the secret of chivalry.”
“To go against the grain is the secret of bravery.”
“To keep the air fresh among words is the secret of verbal cleanliness.”
“To write good poems is the secret of brevity.”
“To cut and tighten sentences is the secret of mastery.”
“To hide feelings when you are near crying is the secret of dignity.”
“To leave out beautiful sunsets is the secret of good taste.”
“To not say all that can be said is the secret of discipline and economy.”
“To say more while saying less is the secret of being simple.”
“The most complicated skill is to be simple.”
“No reason for a feverish rush For we will all arrive in the same place At the right time. Justice will be served. There will be no better or worse, No big and small, no rewards, no punishment, No guilt, no judges, no hierarchies; Only silent equality.”
“There is only as much space, only as much time, Only as much desire, only as many words, Only as many pages, only as much ink To accept all of us at light-speed Hurrying into the Promised Land Of oblivion that is waiting for us sooner or later.”
“Unjustified ambition kills value,Kills someone else's desire to fly, Cuts their wings, sucks their air.If there is nothing else, it eats its own life.”
“Get out, but don't cause unneeded accidents.”
“Since there is no real silence, Silence will contain all the sounds, All the words, all the languages, All knowledge, all memory.”
“Since nothing is absolute There is no absolute silence, Only an appearance Of temporary peace.”
“Busy with the ugliness of the expensive success We forget the easiness of free beautyLying sad right around the corner, Only an instant removed, Unnoticed and squandered.”
“If you are only what you are, You at least have a chance Not to outsmart, But be on a par with yourself And that is worth trying.”
“Dream by making and make by dreaming.”
“Courage is more important than to be deceived by shallow victory waiting for a delayed defeat.”
“Pretense cannot sustain blind power.”
“Nothing reminds us of an awakening more than rain.”
“Those who hate rain hate life.”
“Possible is more a matter of attitude, A matter of decision, to choose Among the impossible possibilities, When one sound opportunity Becomes a possible solution.”
“Possible impossibility emerges From an impossible possibility, Or possibly, impossible possibility Blooms from the impossibly possible impossibility.”
“Everything seems impossible And everything seems possible.”
“There is always the question why And there is always life, Which doesn't need an answer.”
“Why poetry, you ask? Because of life, I answer.”
“When there is noise and crowds, there is trouble; When everything is silent and perfect, There is just perfection and nothing To fill the air.”
“All people are enslaved by something.”
“Some people complain there are too many people on earth, Some people complain about secret societies, Some people accuse others of not being able to wake up early. Almost all people complain about something.”
“If an ancient man saw planes two thousand years ago He would've thought they were birds Or angels from another world Or messengers from other planets.”
“In trying to be perfect, He perfected the art of anonymity, Became imperceptible And arrived nowhere from nowhere.”
“Use the wings of the flying Universe, Dream with open eyes; See in darkness.”
“Oblivion cures the old wounds.”
“When all is lost, there is still a memory.”
“We love the imperfect shapes in nature and in the works of art, look for an intentional error as a sign of the golden key and sincerity found in true mastery.”