Dejan Koban, a poet from Slovenia who took part in the Ulysses' Shelter residencies programme during 2020, started an interesting project during his stay in Belgrade in which he gathered poets and participants from different countries, but scattered around the verses he wrote. In the end, the verses came back to him and will be gathered in his new release during this year.
My first ever poetry residency took place in Belgrade, where I stayed from June 15 to July 1 of last year. For two whole weeks I was moving between Zvezdara, where I lived, and the very centre of the city, where I met quite a number of young local poets. So, I remembered that, in the manner of the good old beatniks, I would create a poem in affect, that is, I would write a longer poem on a whim, right out of my head, and at the end, I would just review it to remove any repetitions. I got another idea to write a poem on postcards and send it all around. And so, that’s what ended up happening. One hundred and eight recipients were, in the end, from Slovenia, Croatia, Germany, Switzerland and Canada. When the addressees received the postcard, they were given the task of photographing the poem for me and sending the photo through a private FB message. Well, the vast majority of the verses were posted right on my wall. When I return from the residency on Mljet, I will edit the poem, redesign it a bit if necessary, and publish it in the form of a collection.
Moja prva pesniška rezidenca v življenju se je zgodila v Beogradu, kjer sem bival od 15. junija do 01. julija lansko leto. Celotna dva tedna sem bil razpet med Zvezdaro, kjer sem bival in samim strogim centrom mesta, kjer sem srečal precej veliko število mlajših lokalnih pesnic in pesnikov. Tako sem se spomnil, da bi, v maniri dobrih starih bitnikov, ustvaril poemu v afektu, se pravi, da bi napisal daljšo pesem ob prvem premišljanju, čisto iz glave, na koncu bi jo le pregledal odstranil morebitna ponavljanja. Dobil sem še eno idejo, da bi poemo pisal na razglednice in jo poslal vse naokoli. Tako se je tudi zgodilo. Sto osem prejemnic in prejemnikov je bilo na koncu, iz Slovenije, Hrvaške, Nemčije, Švice in Kanade. Ko so naslovnice in naslovniki razglednico prejeli, so dobili nalogo, da mi fotografirajo pesem in fotografijo pošljejo v zasebno FB sporočilo. No, velika večina je verze objavila kar na moj zid. Ko se vrnem z Mljeta, naredim redakcijo poeme, jo po potrebi malce preoblikujem in izdam v obliki zvezka.