[caption id="attachment_1016" align="aligncenter" width="200" caption="Remnants of Another Age. Poems by Nikola Madzirov."][/caption]   3:AM Magazine writer SJ Fowler recently conducted an interview with BOA Editions poet Nikola Madzirov. Madzirov's new book, Remnants of Another Age, came out March 15th, but, as Fowler points out in his introduction, Madzirov is already a significant, seasoned author in Macedonia. The interviewer poses questions that span the length and breadth of Madzirov's poetic career, but also asks him to consider what it means to be a Macedonian poet, and what the feeling for poetry is in his home country. Madzirov's response is charcteristically lyric and thoughtful:

I do not believe in everlasting national poetic concepts. We share the language of our childhood, the common pain and expectations of the ancestors whose words cannot be dug up at any archaeological site; we shared the films and books carefully selected by the groups responsible for invisible censorship and the long struggle between the pagan traditions and Christianity that always ends in assimilation. All these things connect us in one family that uses the same language, but different concepts of selfhood and (m)otherhood. Individualism was the main form of aesthetic radicalization and so it is today.

Interestingly, Madzirov also posits that "It is tragic if poetry is regarded as a way of confirming the stories of official histories. Poetry testifies or leaves secrets, but only through its own identity and fragile presence." The rest of this insightful interview is available through 3:AM Magazine's website.