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    White City Wordsmiths, Volume III
    White City Wordsmiths, Volume III
    White City Wordsmiths, Volume III
    Ebook126 pages1 hour

    White City Wordsmiths, Volume III

    By White City Wordsmiths white.city.wordsmithsgmail.com

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    About this ebook

    White City Wordsmiths: Volume III is the third anthology of prose and poetry by talented young people living in Belgrade, who came together in the White City Wordsmiths creative writing workshop, one of many artistic initiatives by the Balkan Writers Project.

    Within these pages you will find the following authors: Jelena Petrovic, Anja Paspalj, Uroš Stanimirovic, Andela Vidojevic, Isidora Alimpic, Marko Radulovic, Ana Nikolic, Milica Popovic, Luka Novkovic, Adriana Rewald, Aleksandra Maravic, Vera Novkovic.

    The workshop was led and coordinated by Jelena Petrovic. This project was supported and facilitated by EL Fellow Jean Salisbury Linehan and the Balkan Writers Project manager and coordinator Irena Raicevic.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWhite City Wordsmiths white.city.wordsmithsgmail.com
    Release dateJul 6, 2017
    ISBN9781370994045
    White City Wordsmiths, Volume III
    Author

    White City Wordsmiths white.city.wordsmithsgmail.com

    The White City Wordsmiths is a creative writing workshop comprised of highly talented Serbian students writing poetry and prose in English. They strive to show off their mastery of the English language and significant artistic talents. This workshop is a project supported by the English Language Fellows Program, a US Department of State public diplomacy initiative to foster intercultural understanding and promote English language learning, with additional help and support from the American Corner and the US Embassy. The workshop and is coordinated by the Balkan Writers Project.

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      White City Wordsmiths, Volume III - White City Wordsmiths white.city.wordsmithsgmail.com

      FOREWORD

      When our originator Nathan William Meyer started this whole thing back in 2014, I, for one, couldn’t have imagined this kind of plot twist. It all began with his ingenuous question: Hey, does anybody here like to write in their free time? Of course we did. Everything went on from there.

      Two years later, I realize I am no longer just a member of the White City Wordsmiths; I became the workshop leader. As much as I enjoyed the idea of being given such an honorable title, with great power comes great responsibility, so I was just a tad afraid of not living up to the great expectations my friends and colleagues had. Fortunately, I managed to power through the fear because I had the opportunity to cooperate with extraordinary people, each of them appreciative, intelligent and creative in their own way (what’s a creative writing workshop without the vastness of diversity?). We published a call for participation in the third workshop (2016/17) and were lucky enough to get some new, wondrous minds as participants. The old and the new faces merged into one giant blob of artistry that somewhere along the way became hardly severable. We had our meetings in Beograđanka, where I conducted creative writing lessons and monitored members of the workshop giving each other constructive feedback and then we’d rage and pillage through the Belgrade coffee places after hours, getting to know each other and musing further on what each of our writing pieces had to offer. And each had to offer a lot.

      This is our third book, and yet the amazement and the passion with which we seem to be accomplishing all our missions do not falter. We march on into the unknown, with our pens and papers and laptops and our minds, relying on nothing but sheer love we all bear for writing. If this is our fuel, it’s no wonder we have got this far.

      Jelena Petrović

      White City Wordsmiths Project Leader

      (Belgrade, 2016-2017)

      JELENA PETROVIĆ

      I find myself to be a place.

      A place ‘where the actual and the imaginary meet’. A place where I go to listen to metal music, the only one that helps me find peace. Where I go to read books and breathe (both of which I do painfully slowly). Where I go to ‘sit down and bleed out’ on the paper and maybe get a chance to write something down.

      I am made of fire and water. Also, my birthday is in December.

      Where to Now?

      Raise your glass

      In the name of everything

      That’s sunk beneath the surface.

      Raise your glass

      To honor the fact

      That you would swallow the embers

      Of your victory

      Only to destroy the evidence

      Only to make it less significant

      Because we all know how hard it is to be wrong.

      Raise your glass

      To all kinds of memories

      That seeped through your skin

      As you were sliding further into chaos.

      Raise your glass

      To all the dry lips

      And the dry walls

      And to the passing of time.

      So reckless of you to think you can ever change that.

      Raise your glass

      To all the closed windows

      And all the closed doors

      And all the times you were forgetful

      Of how it hurts to be wrong.

      Raise your glass

      For what the future might bring

      For all that might resurface

      And break your precious hourglass.

      The soul remembers.

      Avoid eye contact.

      Propose a toast

      To all the damned

      Breathing down your neck

      Begging for more time

      Demanding resolve.

      Propose a toast

      To the dreams you renounced

      To the vetoed places and names and people.

      Leave it all deep in slumber.

      Propose a toast

      To you and your shadow

      To sanity, to apathy

      To the mantle that you wear when you pretend to be God.

      Propose a toast

      To the wounded

      To their scars, to their lost battles

      To their broken hands

      Shattered worlds.

      Propose a toast

      To your kith and kin

      To all that deem your desperate orders

      Dangerously unpredictive.

      Thank them; they still pay you reverence.

      Propose a toast

      To the insignificant.

      Their pleas are the loudest.

      This is where they all belong.

      There are no remedies

      For their lifelong regret.

      Raise your glass and drown in sin.

      Propose a toast and hope to win.

      We’re gathered here and we will bow.

      We pray for forgiveness – where to now?

      Ctrl + S

      undo. forget.

      refresh. breathe in.

      close. good riddance.

      repeat. i’m afraid.

      print. spit it out.

      undo. step back.

      clear formatting. please help me.

      insert footnote. look closer.

      underline. emphasize me.

      Change case. Come clean.

      Do you want to save the changes to Document1?

      Undo. Pretend.

      Undo. Repent.

      I’m sorry.

      I can’t.

      Alt + F4

      Yet Again

      Tell me now,

      Tell me right away,

      Is it worth a thousand punches?

      Is it worth a thousand hopes

      For a thousand more smiles

      And better tomorrows?

      Tell me how,

      Tell me right away,

      How am I supposed to go there alone

      Again?

      Is today the day

      When you brace yourself

      And face yourself

      As you drink your morning coffee

      With the meds on the side?

      How many more breakdowns

      Instead of good mornings

      To get your money’s worth?

      Do we need to pay for the tears too

      Or do we get a discount for being regulars?

      Your will to live is on the ropes.

      As we successfully overlook

      The looks that we get each day,

      Are you also just seemingly oblivious

      Of the whispers?

      No one died of shame yet.

      How many more miles

      Until we get to the promised land

      Of peace and quiet?

      Every relapse is a surprise party

      And you never want me around

      Long enough to meet the clown.

      But honey

      Somebody has to pay the guy

      After the laughter dies down

      And the bounce house deflates

      And all the balloons are popped

      After all the tears dry up

      And the piñata’s insides are consumed

      And all you’re left with

      Is the mess.

      Every show of emotion is considered havoc,

      But you have to know your audience.

      Does the applause come with a price

      Or with the package?

      Tell me now,

      Tell me straight away,

      How many more times will you

      Shamelessly reject the advice,

      Hopelessly move on with your life

      And silently wish for a quick end?

      I can assure you,

      No such thing is in sight

      Since you missed our appointment

      Yet again.

      ANJA PASPALJ

      Finding herself all too often thinking of David Sedaris when he said: It is funny the things that run through your mind when you’re sitting in your underpants in front of a pair of strangers.

      Taverna

      THE DRIVE TOOK AGES – or it felt like it did. Although it may very well have been the fact that I kept thinking about how I should deal with this impending migraine I was about to get because I was sick while on summer vacation or that I kept thinking about possible excuses for escaping dinner early if it got too boring or that I kept thinking about how I had a problem with too much thinking and how does one even stop themselves from thinking or (most probably), the fact that all the twists and turns of the sullen and unlit roads were making me want to blow chunks before we even got to dinner. The approaching awkwardness of a dinner with people you haven’t seen in years and that you do not quite know anymore lingered.

      On the other hand, I was told that the restaurant was the best on the island and I would have given anything for a good meal.

      We drove up through the pitch black to a small square, nothing around but a traditional blue and white stone house and, of course, the restaurant. It was the only well-lit area of the square. The bright orange wall of the entrance and dimmed lantern lights illuminated the small, wooden tables that were randomly scattered about outside. As we got out of the car, I looked at our friend, the Captain. His hair was still salty from the day’s work, slightly graying at the tips from age. I looked down and, for the first time since the drive over, noticed he was barefoot.

      Where are your shoes? I inquired, puzzled. Who in their right mind goes to

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