MATERINA - Ana Seferovic

The poem-stories that form Ana Seferovic’s Materina are from an unofficial history of the ‘Materina’ that Seferovic herself has reclaimed, from the derogatory slang of her Serbian past and the dark shadow of male recounted histories. In Serbia there is no word for ‘motherland’. But there is ‘Materina’. The reclaimed MATERINA’s story, told through the lens of the female, is necessarily a story of the other, of the outcast, of war from a different perspective, of pain that lingers through generations and the cruelty of freedom once achieved. Materina is a place whose borders do not belong to just one country or nation. Rather, it is a no-man's land, in which names of places and countries become irrelevant. These are stories from that no-mans land, about people who don't belong anywhere.'This poem is a novel a poem. I sent this body of work to a known poet and translator, Steven Kessler . I simply said you have never read anything like this. He wrote me a note, which simply said, Astonishing. This is a body of work reminiscent of Orlando. This is a body of work that know one should have had to write. This a body of work that had to be written. Please read this body of work and you will understand.' - Robert Lundquist