Review by Husein Dervisevic

There are poets that spend their whole life trying to become poets and those that are poets by birth, those meant to carry their birthmark. There are also poets that dream until the end of their long life and those that dream for only few seasons, few “autumns dreamt off”. A young fellow I am talking about in the first and in the second case belong to those latter ones: 

Enthralled, young and too early banished from life, between two battles, two deaths, between two hastily finished meals, he recorded what stood out from the other dreams in his head. From his warrior backpack, a handbag with the sign of the Red Cross, there came out his poems for us, his charges emotions, torrents of thoughts and dark forebodings which pushed him to write down as soon as possible everything that could be timely written down; just as he knew that he was one of those biological units that have too little time before they burn out in the mercy of the master Chronos.

I did not know the young man and at first it was not clear to me what manuscript was handed to me, but after reading the first poems, with joy I told to myself: Here is a poet! He put in order all of our nightmares, comforted the dead for us on the line that separates the two worlds – this one and the other one – and, as prompted by the whisper of the Almighty, he shaped his (and our) dreams in a season given to him. Poems of Fadil Komić were first read by Hazim Alagić. In a short biography he wrote: “There is no doubt that Fadil, the poet, anticipated his early death.” Well, who is, indeed, Komić? And what is Komić if not a visionary of his own tragedy and one of the young people destined not to grow old? It all depends on who, how and why is asking? Even without bibliographic units, he is, in my personal opinion, a true poet interrupted forever amidst a season of sweet dreams. However, that is not enough, because his literary legacy from a warrior’s bag, seeks for a more complex observation that demands an interpretation of this interesting literary persona marked with a seal of curse to be conducted on several levels.

"Mark", of course, I do not mention without a reason; considering everything that fateful he carried within himself and considering his literary texts, viewed from a literary-historical point of view, Komić could join the large army of the "damned poets", which was historically lining since the time of Villon, through the time of Symbolism and all those that came after, all too early matured and vanished from life, all carrying throughout life a special mark. One needs only to think how short lived some of the world's literary celebrities (Novalis 19 years, Lotreamon 23, Keats 26, Shelley and Yesenin 30 or in our Dušan Vasilyev 24 and Miljković 27), then we seem to be easier to understand the poet in question.

Since “dying in life is not new” some poets with the mark lived to see old(er) age but theirs were rather strange biographies. Rimbaud, for example, live to see the age of 37 but his literary work was ended at the age of eighteen, so it is simply amazing how in such short literary life he managed to create all of his work. If for Rimbaud they say he was entitled to a “holy mess of the spirit”, for Villon it was said to be: a poet – bandit, a student from the left gallows for whom writing was merely a light insanity. As it happened, mainly around these (and such) poets, everything was rather strange and unusual, which set them apart not only from the other mortals but also from other artists who lived a more normal life and had their own, more subtle, mark of destiny. 

The life of Komić was also marked by the strange and the unusual, his “seasonal” writings and ordering of the chaos he did not ask for, far away from Villon’s laughter from the gallows. Unlike other “damned poets” who playes with their destinies, putting their dreams in a diary, our poet put in order both his curse and ours, as destiny played with our lives. Thus we understand his dialogue with the other world, transformed into a mature reflection, the suspicion, the feeling of being cheated and the definition of all games played at the expense of a man, a fragile and songful dreamer. “Everything is in a deceit / Unachievable, untouchable/ The big picture of my dreams / Dispersed by a single gaze…” said Komić in the poem “The Sweet Season of Dreams” at the very beginning of the book, probably aware of scams and confident that he will stay forever young, only a bit older than Novalis. 

And it is difficult to write about the first collections, especially if the author is young and unknown. However, the work is before us and it must be evaluated, despite the doubts on objectivity. In the interpreter’s work, after all, subjectivity is inevitable, so, no matter how the rest may look at it, and I shall be a bit subjective - because I'm on the side of the poet. How could I not be when the poet is already stigmatized; one should respect the curse and the "spiritual disorder", which, in this case, plentiful and in good (aesthetic) measure. The collection is full of successful internal projections of a poet, call them poems or dreams, it makes no difference. And the poetic plays; Surprising it is how much of it is present in this young man, and I wonder where did this mockery of concepts, the humorous reflection, the Skenderovskian wordplay with frequent rhyming and rhythm full of gaiety come from when he, Komić, was aware of his destiny. Hence- truth be told, in a certain number of poems, even those with a darker atmosphere – gaiety does not subside, but it descends and ascends resembling a lexical brook, so it seems that they could be sang by only a person that was born to be a poet. After the opening, the aforementioned song, which starts a number of successful Fadil Komić’s poems, followed by another good unit, poetic diptych “A room in the dusk “, where a room, perhaps by a chance, is a place of the poet’s biological beginning and the end, separated in two frames. The extent of just how much this is a "bittersweet" season of dreams, but also a valuable literary material, is expressed in the third song in the series, " Each moment howls (To detainees)" , a shocking piece plucked from a living man.

In some poems Komić rather restrains his emotions and dreams, and empowers more the rational thinking. Then he says: '' Be who you are / on your own / noble on noble ''.

For this poet, of course, there is a lot of engaged poetry, of temporary, of moments that fade on a distant timeline, but previous examples show that it is not always the case. Browsing through readers will find a number of interesting poems of an appealing rhythm or a Krleža-like playing with meaning, and they will discover that despite Komić’s that “Ache in happiness aches” and that the poet knows how to mock everything that comes out of the top of the pen.

This collection has a lot of common places, titles and finals written hastily, or ideas that were eaten by time, and yet good poems catch up with each other, so that we find a series of well-executed poetic units, though not exactly anthological, but sincere and interestingly written indeed. These poems are: How big is the flame of love, The Land Undefeated, Eyes like yours, I do not know who you are, They have been telling me, Peasant, The silver of my sky, The Sea, The night, This word of mine, Where life deaths, Is he right?, In loving memory of my brother . This series is complemented by Dreams destroyed by reality and a great ballad Poem on yellow rubber boots, and it is certainly enough for an interesting and good poetry collection.

Because of all what I said, I will also point out this. In some other times, when the poetry still made sense, this poet would be true discovery. And it is what someone would have been upon writing: 'In cry you are born, in cry you die / And in between there anything you do not understand' '(Life), or:' 'You left me alone / Like withered acacia branch' (You left me all alone).

This way we may say that we have pulled out of oblivion another talented young man who dreamt with sincerity his dreams and thus we added to a large convoy of tragic poets another one. And, if there is luck, and more honest interpreters coming from our literary space, we have found a noteworthy literary figure: Fadil Komić.

Well, dreams are ahead. They are offered on the literary table and there is something for everyone - both to the taste, and according to the criteria. So let us enjoy it while they are here, while the season comes all over again, unfortunately without the one who dreamt them.

Husein Dervišević