Jelena Dinic
Jennifer Harrison reviews 'In the Room with the She Wolf' by Jelena Dinić and 'Beneath the Tree Line' by Jane Gibian
In an impressive first collection, the South Australian poet Jelena Dinić incorporates her Serbian heritage and memories of war-affected Yugoslavia into an Australian migration narrative of clear-sighted beauty. William Carlos Williams wrote in the introduction to Kora In Hell: Improvisations (1920): ‘Thus a poem is tough … solely from that attenuated power which draws perhaps many broken things into a dance giving them thus a full being.’ Although far from improvisational, Dinić’s poetry compositionally integrates both fragility and strength as it draws together diverse experiences of war trauma, cultural displacement, the petty administrative routines of immigration departments, a Malaysian writing fellowship, Australian icons (such as the rainwater tank), folklore, and bathing in the Adriatic Sea.
... (read more)My husband has returned. A traveller whose flight was cancelled has found his way home. He slowly unpacks while I make space for the unexpected.
... (read more)States of Poetry 2016 SA Podcast | 'Alterations to the little black dress' by Jelena Dinic
Thursday, 23 June 2016In this episode of Australian Book Review's States of Poetry podcast, Jelena Dinic reads her poem 'Alterations to the little black dress' which features in the 2016 South Australian anthology.
... (read more)States of Poetry 2016 SA Podcast | 'Handbag' by Jelena Dinic
Thursday, 23 June 2016In this episode of Australian Book Review's States of Poetry podcast, Jelena Dinic reads her poem 'Handbag' which features in the 2016 South Australian anthology.
... (read more)States of Poetry 2016 SA Podcast | 'Babysitting' by Jelena Dinic
Thursday, 23 June 2016In this episode of Australian Book Review's States of Poetry podcast, Jelena Dinic reads her poem 'Babysitting' which features in the 2016 South Australian anthology.
... (read more)States of Poetry 2016 SA Podcast | 'The Silence of Siskins' by Jelena Dinic
Thursday, 23 June 2016In this episode of Australian Book Review's States of Poetry podcast, Jelena Dinic reads her poem 'The Silence of Siskins' which features in the 2016 South Australian anthology.
... (read more)States of Poetry 2016 - South Australia | 'Alterations to the little black dress' by Jelena Dinic
A little pin-up
three fingers
above the knees.
Behind the curtain
a dress-up game –
pretty things come undone.
He chalks lines
on raw stitches.
I catwalk.
My body fits the timeless black.
'You can live in it, or die'
smile the lips full of needles.
Do I look a little dead
with black fabric
on bone-pale flesh?
States of Poetry 2016 - South Australia | 'The Silence of Siskins' by Jelena Dinic
for my grandfather
He circles my arrival
on the calendar.
It is late November
and it doesn't snow.
A wooden pallet
hardens his bed.
He dreams of grandmother.
He doesn't want new dreams.
Two siskins in cages –
their song frozen like the air
that other November
when she lost her heart
c ...
States of Poetry 2016 - South Australia | 'Babysitting' by Jelena Dinic
for Mia
I wore my grandmother's clothes
and sat on her doorstep.
Monday to Friday.
She talked.
I lied.
'I'll teach you how to write,' I said
pretending I could
hold a pen.
'Mouse will eat your ears,' she smiled.
At night we leaned on pillows
watched TV with subtitles.
I made up foreign words.
I tol ...
States of Poetry 2016 - South Australia | 'Handbag' by Jelena Dinic
after Vasko Popa
Always ready to leave
leaving
each time further
from the whispers
of the grass.
She has forgotten
her death,
the calf she once was.
Curled around an arm
a new name sewn
into her mouth
she's been there, done that.
A tramp, living beyond
the stitches of life.
&n ...