The collaborative exhibit, “Peeking” in collaboration with local St Andrews artists Jonathan Koetsier and Sarah Koetsier. The exhibit was installed as part of StAnza Poetry Festival 2023 program. Inspired by Edwin Morgan’s concrete poems, the exhibit explored the notion of a corporeal language, where words and letters can be given texture, dimension, growth, and enclosure, extending across languages, English and Macedonian, and alphabets, Latin and Cyrillic, to invite new paths of visual and semantic meaning. Jonathan and I created a series of book art in conversation with my poetry. In the books, words are playfully concealed and found, can be “peeked” through, “eat” through the page, or acquire new dimensions from different angles. Sarah created sculptural art in response as physical representations of the themes explored in the books and poems.

I then created a second series of poems which I performed at the StAnza Poets in Residence Poetry Café. I have included a selection of these poems as my submission to be considered for the Out-Spoken Press Open Submissions 2023. I wrote these poems with the festival theme, WILD: Forms of Resistance, and the Translation Award in mind. I intended the poems as interpretations and newly imagined adaptations of traditional Macedonian folksongs, many of which are based on conversations had between the natural world and the human. When performed, the verses in Macedonian which are excerpts from the folksongs, are sung. In Macedonian, the term for translating poetry is “препев“, or “re-singing”. My intent with these poems is to “re-sing” a fading heritage. In my interpretation of them, I aim to highlight the drama, wildness, and poetry that these folksongs bring with them, and I carry with me. You can read more about it in my Q&A with the Edwin Morgan Trust.