An almost magical power of the word

»An expression in poetry can be just a word or a sentence. Just like a sound of one string or simply two tones are enough expressible in music.«

Recently published collection »Three stairs higher«, a poetic book written by Mateja Blaznik (otherwise a guitar teacher in Radovljica and an excellent guitarist mostly known from Tantadruj). Lately, she performs in duet with Boštjan Soklič quite a lot, and prepares a selfsupporting project with another member of Tantadruj, Aleš Hadalin. This time she surprised us with a poetic collection.

Besides your music career (above all with acoustic group Tantadruj in which you often enroach for poetry of Murn, Shakespeare, Prešeren and many others), you waited for this collection for quite a long time ...
When I was performing with Tantadruj I never thought of writing poems. I probably didn`t have such a deep view on the songs we played. As a guitarist I mostly orientated on music. Nevertheless I was always attracted by the power of words. I write poems for the past seven, eight years, and this book is my creation of that era.

How do your poems begin it`s formation? In a sudden inspiration, long walks, in finding the right words ...?
Sometimes just a word is enough. You watch a movie, read a book, perhaps a tiny incident inspires you. Some poems were also created in a solitude of nature, some were written in a blink of an eye, so to speak. The other ones, however short they are, needed months to be completed. The sound, the rhythm of words and connection between is important. Maybe I think like a musician.

You took these words out of my mouth ...
Beside my own expressions, reflections on surroundings, I seek for words based on how they sound. If a word is born, it`s ok. If not, you keep looking.

Some of the poems are related with individual events ...
Yes, no matter how little they seem to be. For instance a poem » Ribe molčijo«. My deceased grandmother usually sat in a big chair, behind her was an aquarium with fishes closed in a small vessel which squeezed and suffocated them ... Still they remained silent. It reminds me of people in need with no goals, remaining inside of themselves.

The sun doesn`t vanish; it lives in palms every night. I read short poems also, like some haiku ...
Yes, but I don`t  hold on to some rules except my own inner ones.

With a couple of new coined words ...
Being different, original is perhaps also a challenge. Although those words seem incomprehensible at first sight, I believe you can actually feel them in my poems.

The collection is enriched with paintings of France Berce ...
I prepared myself for publishing for a long time, as if there weren`t enough poems. I probably wasn`t self-confident ... Then I gave them to a couple of people and they inspired me. France Berce contributed these exquisite paintings. I must say that he really felt my poetry; some of the paintings are almost melting together with poems. The collection was published by Miran Dolar in his P.H. (Publishing House) Medium.

The collection is named by one of the songs, »Three stairs higher«?
A story of comfort on stage. I perform with Tantadruj in Prešeren`s theatre. We are on the stage, I`m looking in the distant dark above the crowd. Cracks are on the floor, I`m alone on stage and curtains are like waves of dark red moss. When everything is great on stage, real life is certanly the opposite of great.
Will you continue writing?
I`m occupied with music at the moment. I`m preparing an authorial album with instrumental (guitar) and vocal part.

Are you considering of composing your poems too?
Certainly not. I wrote those poems for reading.

Igor Kavčič

We all believe in spring and rainy birds. May spring offers us nests, bushes and noise from crowns of trees. The spring is also a silk of grass. It is the spring of every night.
The poet Mateja Blaznik with her poetry seeks for all those ways that aren`t only reflection of a birch that calls for dreams, not only an over flight over the roofs of homes, not only the peace of silence ... She seeks hallways and colors of distances. In her poetry is to feel something new, different. She doesn`t pretend a play of a woman; her visage can only be a touch of smiles when she plays with sun in the night.

This is not a poetry of momentary inspiration, but the poetry from a different side of a woman. In the latest Slovenian poetry we often feel a woman`s expression as a poem of experience rounded up in a circle of emotions. A step outside can only be a fragment of a shooting star with some different luxury and light.

Mateja Blaznik denudes the warmth of the world with a sense of emotions. This book is a nice surprise in Slovenian poetry, verse lines pours over to the essence of Slovenia and the collection »Three steps higher« is Slovenian poetry.

Collection with a title that implies »to perform« or even »to conquer« is a promising work of creation. It is composed of 25 poems divided by 5 water paintings of France Berce. His 6th painting is on the cover, his 7th is on the last page and presents a body of nude woman. Yes, the title of collection calls for nudity. May I mention that Mateja Blaznik is also a musician and plays in the band Tantadruj. The position »higher on the stage« is therefore closer to her. Her performance needs to be settled effectively: »Three steps higher, the stage/The blue light shines upon the sound/The chords. Folds in the wood.«

The key word that marks these poems is impression, I think. She threads impressions into a sonic stack, finds and reveals them into verses. If I may exaggerate a bit: a singing power: »She doesn`t vanish/it lives in palms/every night.« Rarely another person appears among these impressions from environment. If already, A person is veiled, almost lost in thought. Verse line: »With closed eyes/you see me« is from the first part where you can still sense irruptions of Another, afterwards these interruptions disappear. The collection ends with verse line:« On the cross testifies/quietly looks.« The poet`s dialogue remains: »In the silky grass triangle/in the wet silky grass.«

The 4th part describes a year from autumnal equinox onwards by seasons: autumn, winter, spring, summer. This part introduces a verse line: »Halls of smoky images/inflexible signs/and colors.« Then the seasons rotate. The last verse of first autumnal poem says: »A long winter it shall be«, and last verse of the last summer poem:«Distant winters cools them down.« Then a question appears: Is the distance of three steps the causer of observing the world from distance? If so, is it also the causer of loneliness?

When I read Mateja`s lines the reading puts me in a stage where the poem stays and rings. The poems are almost songs; shorter, but more appealing:«There are no lifting words/voices shorts into whisper/only plain and mystery/of congealed echo ...«

What made the poem is the real thing; offers a birth of new poems. The poet knows he cannot own that. He can only own the letters composed into a book and sends it among people. And what is the end of such performance?

Is it really only in the silence? It`s like this with poems:«The wind pushed into the room./veil wandered/lines scattered.« Not only silence, also decay. Descent is obviously hard. Impressions without reflection, only with resounded silence.

»The poems are deep, pure and every word has just the right measure; they are arranged into thoughts like a small musical work with a fine inner rhythm. Illustrations of an artist France Berce are as perfected as the poems.«