Dorta Jagić was born in Sinj in 1974. She graduated from the Jesuit Philosophy University in Zagreb with a degree in philosophy and religious culture. Jagić has had her poetry, short stories, and theatre criticism published in various magazines. She has also written various scenarios for short movies. Since 1999, she has worked as a theater teacher as well as a director in student theater companies. She translates from German and English, and is currently working on a picture book entitled Školjka Kata (Cathy the Sea Shell).
Dorta Jagić made her poetic debut in 1999 with the award-winning book, Plahta preko glave (Head Under the Sheets), which received the Goran Award For Young Poets, a distinguished national poetry award given annually for a first book of poetry. Critics highly praised Jagić’s book for its innovations in style and its fresh and daring approach to modernistic poetics. “The poetry of Dorta Jagić would attract readers that do not have a prejudice toward poetry, and it holds the potential to reassure those doubters who think that contemporary poetry is inevitably dull and pretentious,” said Tonko Maroević. Furthermore, Zvonimir Mrkonjić plainly stated, “The most appropriate thing to say about Dorta Jagić would be to hail: We have a poet!”
The poems presented here are from her second and third books, Tamagochi mi je umro na rukama (Tamagochi Died In My Arms), from 2002, and Đavo i usidjelica – ispovijedi (Devil and the Spinster – Confessions), 2003, respectively. One of the distinctive features of her poetry is the creation of a different function for the metaphor. In her poetry, that prominent, and in contemporary poetry, frequently worn out figure of speech is transformed into the main framework for the entire poem.
The audible and visual qualities of her language are constantly overlapping, thus creating the matrix for the remarkable sensations that sprout in the spaces dividing and/or connecting the outer and inner worlds. Understanding these forces is the key to deciphering Jagić’s ‘exotic’ and lyrical discourse. In her poetry, the well-known avant-garde concept of de-familiarization is fruitfully used as a device focused on the articulation of a new sensibility in Croatian poetry.
Poems
No One Writes to the Clerk
Literally, Only Literally
Retired Seas
My Grandma’s Bardo Thödol
Under the Cheeks
Flying Stones
Summer Is Not Sacral
Vertigo
Bibliography
Poetry
Plahta preko glave (Head Under the Sheets). SKUD I. G. Kovačić, Zagreb 1999.
Tamagochi mi je umro na rukama (Tamagochi Died In My Arms). Meandar, Zagreb 2002.
Đavo i usidjelica – ispovijedi (Devil and the Spinster – Confessions). AGM, Zagreb 2003.
Awards
Goranova nagrada za mlade pjesnike (The Goran Award For Young Poets), 1999.
Award of the literary magazine Vijenac for Jagić’s short story ‘Riblje oko’ (Fish Eye), 2001.Award for the staging of the Alexander Vvedenski play, Jelka kod Ivanovih (Christmas tree at Ivanovs), 2002.
Links
In Croatian:
HT
Poems, essays and articles.
