New poetry collection published by Buybook: Jasmina Bikić's debut 'Tabakera'

(Patria) - At the end of February, the poetry collection "Tabakera" by author Jasmina Bikić will see the light of day, published by Buybook.



Although she wrote newspaper articles in the field of culture and art for many years, this is the author's debut, divided into four thematic sections: Where are we?, Feelings, Greats, and Present without perfect.

Author Jasmina Bikić recalls a gallery of characters known and unknown to readers in a special and unusual way, such as her family members, describes our homeland in rhymes, through cities and rivers that inspired her, and the time in which we live today.

"Tabakera's lyrical gifts are divided into four groups..., which are suggestive and picturesque in their linguistic expression, but are stylistically diverse, so that an ordinary reader, if they were to read them in isolation from the book, could not conclude that poems such as 'Life', 'Grandpa', 'Death', and 'Instead of a Review' are the works of the same author," wrote, among other things, writer Indira Kučuk Sorguč in her review.

Sorguč placed special emphasis on the last part of the book, "Present without perfect", stating that in it "the author is a watchful supervisor of the new era who transforms the technology of words into symbols, reducing speech to cryptograms and digital idioms, in which her eye sees great dehumanizing differences between life with live pulsating face-to-face communication and this hidden, coded, fragmented into pieces by emoticons and games".

The title of the book, "Tabakera", is interesting, evoking patina and the past, especially in light of the cover, which features a picture of an antique wooden tobacco box, a work by Dobrislava Boba Vuga.



- The tobacco box is indeed a symbol of the past, something you keep, for your own pleasure, which you share with close and dear people. By profession, I am a lawyer, a legalist, so I will say that the era of tobacco boxes has not passed, because you can enjoy this tobacco box, regardless of legal prohibitions and restrictions, anywhere and anytime, and through that enjoyment, experience a poetic collision of past and present.

The tobacco box is a witness to our past, joy and sorrow, suffering and rise, but also the victory of love, as well as coexistence, which is actually our destiny - stated the author of the collection, in which she incorporated characters with whom she had previously conducted interviews and met - academician and writer Abdulah Sidran and Nedžad Ibrišimović, Prof. Dr. Ismet Gavrankapetanović, General Jovan Divjak, mother-heroine Halida Bojadži, Adnan Midžić from Trg heroja, as well as characters and events from documentaries Keli, Kinđa, Hase, Olympics in Sarajevo, Butterflies without Wings, Željo's Hundred, Ivica Osim Boulevard...

The reviewer, writer Fahrudin Kučuk, particularly highlighted the author's poetic reflection on the past and present in his review.

"Jasmina Bikić has very well made her point with these encounters of the modern and the transient, where she solves the riddle of life. Everything is in the service of man, as entertainment or a guide to suffering. She sends us a clear message - that both life and death are messages, both are companions of man that cannot postpone the end.

The author's striking, concise, rhythmic, and unmasking writing in the book 'Tabakera' is an invitation to the reader to encounter the truth of life," wrote, among other things, writer Fahrudin Kučuk.

- Dear Fahro wrote beautifully, because I encountered the truth of my poetic life when I met him last summer at the cult Sarajevo Vilsu and when he literally scolded me for not publishing a poetry book, knowing that I had been writing for years.

Just like the respected Prof. Jasminka Šipka, who after reading one of my poems called me and said that the poems were such that I shouldn't keep them to myself and that I had to publish them as soon as possible.

While my former first culture editor Indira, after the first reading, said that what I had written was my kind of lyrical testament. These three will open my "Tabakera" together with me on February 28, 2025, at 6 PM, in the Amphitheater of the Youth Center KSC Skenderija, with piano accompaniment by Prof. Adis Vuga - says the author.