In Your Dreams: Šime Knežević in-conversation with Dan Hogan

Poetry which sings with its silences.

As its title suggests, Šime Knežević’s first book-length poetry collection gestures towards the elusive and often fragmented reality of dreams and recollections. The poems speak of distance, dislocation and longing, evoked by the poet’s cultural ties to Croatia, the awkwardness of personal relations and the discomforts of language. They also convey the embarrassment and regret which spring from daily encounters, especially when the point of view is that of an adolescent, a lover, a rival, indeed a poet, endowed with a more than usual amount of self-consciousness.

These concerns are echoed, and heightened, by the elliptical form of the poems and their surreal dislocations, which invite the play of implication, giving space and silence their own kind of eloquence. The effect is remarkable, both for the range of emotions expressed, which includes humour and joy alongside unease and uncertainty, and for the intensity of…