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The Shape
POETRY IN TRANSLATION
The Shape (Oblik, 2000) is a collection of poetry by the Serbian-American poet Dejan Stojanović (1959). The book contains 46 poems in six "Home of the Shape," "Happiness of Atoms," "Bells," "Pit of the Stone," "Wonders," and "Big Chamber."
The primordial existence of the shape, summed up in Dejan Stojanović's poems, does not rest on historical and mythical tradition. However, it indirectly relies on it. The poem is deeply plunged into the darkness of the primordial form and its countless allotropic forms depicted in the natural cycle. It establishes a relationship between one's formative power and perception of the outlines and boundaries of the world—space and time, a unique and absolute being, the beginning and end of the world.
– Petar V. Arbutina
CONCISE AND CLEAN LANGUAGE
Philosophical reminiscences prevail in the book The Shape. The basic motif throughout the book is shape, from atoms to stars. It must be admitted that writing about such an abstract concept takes work. Affirmation of life and creativity is dominant in the world. "I am the form that creates forms / To create means to live" ("The Life of Forms"). In the poem "Glow," there is praise for the "If you understood my brilliance / You would shine, too." In a quiet voice, the poet admonishes those who are deaf to the "I only speak in silence // If I really spoke / You would become speechless" ("Return from a Dream"). The movement is, "I've passed through everything / Although, I've never been anywhere // I sleep in the smallest and the biggest / Although I stay in the same place // Wherever I go / I run into myself," from the poem of the same name.
Hate stands on the other side. The poet, naturally, opts for love but also understands the one who "Nothing happens / Nothing disappears" ("Big room"). A distant shape, in spite of huge distance, can be heard. In the book The Shape, Stojanović expressed a high degree of philosophical understanding of things and phenomena, abstract above all, and presented himself as a great poet.
– Draginja Urošević
Borba, 2001
The Shape (Oblik, 2000) is a collection of poetry by the Serbian-American poet Dejan Stojanović (1959). The book contains 46 poems in six "Home of the Shape," "Happiness of Atoms," "Bells," "Pit of the Stone," "Wonders," and "Big Chamber."
The primordial existence of the shape, summed up in Dejan Stojanović's poems, does not rest on historical and mythical tradition. However, it indirectly relies on it. The poem is deeply plunged into the darkness of the primordial form and its countless allotropic forms depicted in the natural cycle. It establishes a relationship between one's formative power and perception of the outlines and boundaries of the world—space and time, a unique and absolute being, the beginning and end of the world.
– Petar V. Arbutina
CONCISE AND CLEAN LANGUAGE
Philosophical reminiscences prevail in the book The Shape. The basic motif throughout the book is shape, from atoms to stars. It must be admitted that writing about such an abstract concept takes work. Affirmation of life and creativity is dominant in the world. "I am the form that creates forms / To create means to live" ("The Life of Forms"). In the poem "Glow," there is praise for the "If you understood my brilliance / You would shine, too." In a quiet voice, the poet admonishes those who are deaf to the "I only speak in silence // If I really spoke / You would become speechless" ("Return from a Dream"). The movement is, "I've passed through everything / Although, I've never been anywhere // I sleep in the smallest and the biggest / Although I stay in the same place // Wherever I go / I run into myself," from the poem of the same name.
Hate stands on the other side. The poet, naturally, opts for love but also understands the one who "Nothing happens / Nothing disappears" ("Big room"). A distant shape, in spite of huge distance, can be heard. In the book The Shape, Stojanović expressed a high degree of philosophical understanding of things and phenomena, abstract above all, and presented himself as a great poet.
– Draginja Urošević
Borba, 2001
- GenresPoetry
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First published July 1, 2012
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About the author
Dejan Stojanovic
78 books138 followersDejan 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.
Philosophy: Absolute.
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 l
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.
Philosophy: Absolute.
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 l
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 20, 2025
The five poetry collections by Dejan Stojanovic that I’ve read made me realise, and later confirm, that he is a master of his craft.
While they draw heavily from Christian mythos, they convey truly universal messages.
The language he uses is like honey to my ears, eyes, and soul.
And he translates his own works and for that he deserves praise and praise only.
Beautifully talks about the world’s “Master of the Craft” while also being one himself.
While they draw heavily from Christian mythos, they convey truly universal messages.
The language he uses is like honey to my ears, eyes, and soul.
And he translates his own works and for that he deserves praise and praise only.
Beautifully talks about the world’s “Master of the Craft” while also being one himself.
Displaying 1 of 1 review