SUDDEN AWARENES AND CONFLICT WITHIN INCORPOREALITY
Written by Sead Begovic

Stanka Gjurić is the first contemporary Croatian writer who employed a well-tailored logistic for the purposes of the promotion of her poetry –a “do-it-yourself exhibit” or poetic illustration containing photographs of her shy body in the nude published in the Croatian popular press. There is no doubt whatsoever that the readers' lust is now considerably greater owing to her reminding the public of her poetic work in this fashion. During the 70s of the 20th century Katlin Ladik, a performer from Novi Sad, did the same, though in a much more aggressive and erotically daring fashion with her dance, phonic and body performances in space. Such erotic provocations – which emerged with the well – and widely accepted body art in the world – neider helped the literary-critical reception of their poetic efforts particularly nor did they reinforce the readership's awareness of their work. What this provocations did was considerably quake traditional conceptions exactly by this carnivalisation of the business of writing. It seems, howewer, that such provocations, with which Gjurić has both stirred and irritated pettybourgeois and middleclass taboos and inhibitions, are not her unchanging intention.
With this, her sixth – and even her seventh collection of poetry – she has demonstrated that for her there is something beyond such communication with the readership. The quality of her text mocks exactly those readers whose expect and only take pleasure in the author's disobedience to the canons of poetry, unrestrained hedonism, bizarreness and authorial indiscretion.
The extent to which Gjurić is discrete, allusive and secretive is divulged by the attributive clause Sve što sja (All That Glitters) – which is also the title of her book – with which she sets in motion a peculiar shamanisation of both the text and the unconscious part of everydayness. In her mostly proselike
sentences – since her poems are poems in prose – she perpetually enquires “who are we?” in “horrifyingly confortable cages” (as “ a concentration camp prisoner” or “in the cracks of bars”). She preserves this neo-existentialist attitude o both the purpose and reasons for living in all her four cycles: Pomak kolosa (Colossus' move), Stigma (Stigma), Detalji sjene (Details of Shade) and Navještanje (Annunciation). Wraped in the layers of serious discourse she she neither does nor can caricature her own personal experiences by mere communication of messages; she, rather, breathes a universal meaning into things by her seductive narration. Endowed with images, her poetic sentences “listen attentively to the soothing snaps of emptiness” and generally do not meet the readership's aesthetic requirements. Through the tightened and confined structure of her poems she emits serene reflections  arising from diverse situations and disturb us with a sudden awereness, i.e. a poetic view which conceals in itself philosophical messages which are never fully completed since what they veil in their nature is poetic sparkle. The whole, on the other hand, serves the intellect or the intellectuality of her linguistic messages. If indeterminacy of meaning and the darkened places of conceptuality do not reveal them, these poems in prose (scenes, sketches or notes) create the illusion of authentic and spontaneous oral speech.
Even though Gjurić avoids talking of the ephemeral, her attention is devoted to seemingly insignificant things and it is with them that she encompasses her poetic world. And it is here that one arrives at a paradox. In other words, as in all those poets to whom philosophy and philosophising is the fundamental textual overtone, every corporeality soon collides with incorporeality. A greater emotional level is discernible only in the poems dedicated of referring to her dog Hooper (and these are “Progonstvo” / “Exile”; “Krzneni soldat” / “Furry Soldier”; “Dvojnica” / “A LookAlike; “Stigma” and “Hooperu” / “To Hooper”). The mimicry content, naturally, always reveals something else, so that her thus-imposed animalism is nothing but an excuse for her seeking answers to the most difficult questions. These transformations from one state into another are not followed by literal and elegant forms of animalistic imagination but rather wish to affirm something and bring one to one's senses. The poetess's spiritual obsession with knowledge necessarily forces her to reconsider countless important questions of life. Thus, Gjurić most certainly confuses us with this book, since – in contrast to our expectations that she would poeticise about her own and others' unbearable needs and wishes (unberiable to our consciousness and superego) which we tend to store in cellars – what she does is receive us with exceptional speculations luring our our deepest understandings of life. Instead of poeticising about herself unclothing and exposing herself in text as her younger fellow poetesses, she almost rationally discusses the questions she takes great interest in. once she breathes poetic energy, the principle of causality and diverse forms of perception into the latter, what she records are the reflections of her spiritual being – through this process she probes herself following the principle of the greatest truths always being personal.
Interestingly enough, in the same year (in 2005) Gjurić dedicated to publish a new handful of poems entitled Kažnjavalac dobrih navika (Punisher of Good Habits), this time round with Alfa, a publisher from Zagreb, and edited by Božidar Petrač, a poetry connoisseur and expert. Yet again, flowing from her sixth to this or her seventh collection of poetry, one senses the  the predominance of contemplative sententiality mostly consisting of both imitations and observations of the most profound principles of life. The structure of the poems is seemingly simple – her spontaneous experiences of her lyrical subjects are soon transferred into the inner world of the deepest sequences of thought (“Sve što me takne // prošlo je kroz hitru smrt // i prije nego znalo je za mene”; “Everything that touches me // has passed through swift death // even before it knew of me”). Or the very opposite process is at hand – her more profound experience of the immediate world is garnished with reflective-lyrical indeterminacy and is finally presented as a picturesque and firsthand experience (“…netko poda mnom ravnodušno krvari”; “…someone beneath me bleeds indifferently”). In Gjurić one can sense temporary speechlessness of the living language – the one that, in its novel forms and experiences, counts on the synesthetic and linguistic experiments of the immediate experience of language. In contrast the above, on encounters a rounded off poetic reflectiveness on the level of individual verses, whose expressively enigmatic quality touches different spheres of life; whereas the suddenness of the motifs suggests excessive freedom of untamed thoughts. What the poetess persistently promotes is the feeling of the rolling of the body and various sensations are not, however, her permanent obsession; their imposition only serves as an anthropomorphic leap towards the unattained and blurred intension of the spirit (“otisnuta bestežnost” / weightlessness set sail”; “suptilna konačnost” / “subtle finality”; “obmana spokojnosti” / “the deception of serenity”; “podlijeganje tjeskobnoj sklonosti” / “succumbing to anxious propensities”, etc.). In her very best poems “Namjera” (“Intention”) and “Odlazak” (Departure”) all the aforementioned qualities poetically fuse captivating one while reading her latest book.

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PLENTY OF AWARDS FOR STANKA GJURIC
A Distinguished Poet Successfully Tried Her
Hand at Film as an Author

Short films are frequently called poetry, while long ones prose. The poet STANKA GJURIC confirmed the truthfulness of that statement, finding a new tipe of presenting her own poetry – recording it on film.

Her beginnings on film were marked by her participation at the FESTIVAL OF WOMEN ARTISTS OF THE MEDITERRANEAN AND  THE BLACK SEA in September 2006. Her essays shown there were video essays. A month later – having come across the competition of FESTIVAL PRVIH (FESTIVAL OF THE FIRST ONES) where artist try their hand at a medium different from the one they are primarly active in – her second short film entitled “Ubojite misli” (“Battle Thoughts”) – (this time the topic was “Mines”) – after having been selected – was shown at the gallery “Nova” together with the works of other authors. As it seems, that success was decisive for the continuation of Stanka's film career.
Having adapted her love of poetry for the screen and having it put on the Internet, she attracted a lot of interest from younger populations which – as it emerged – prefers to watch, or, listen to poetry, since in her short films she wispers, and it is, naturally, accompanied by a film of a suitable poetic content.
In March 2007 she continued her international career in Paris, participating in UNESCO's competition entitled “DigiArtsAward” with her audio-visual work dedicated to Zagreb. The main topic was a global dialogue through art as a vital power of positive changes in society and the way in which we react to our surroundings, directly and globally. Works were sent by authors from even some fifty countries: Japan, China, Germany, France, Great Britain, Israel, Palestine, Syria and Switzerland and many others.
So far, Stanka Gjurić's films have been shown at numerous international film festivals. In 2007 she even von four awards (five since December 2006).
Already, with her first film done in one shot (done entirely spontaneously with her digital camera, at first not intending to show it anywhere) she won a special award of the panel of judges (Special Jury award) at an International Festival of small and independent film productions FILMSKI FRONT (The FILM FRONT) in Novi Sad in December 2006.
One journalist asked: “Regarding the variety of works, ranging from amateur to professional ones, did you – as a member of the panel of judges – have any problems with their evaluation?”, and  judge panellist MILUTIN PETROVIC answered:
“My attitude towards film is such that I do not have problems of that sort. In my view, for example, ANDY WARHOL and HOWARD HAWKS share a very similar level. Here at the festival none of the three award-winning authors is a professionals. They all made films that are incomparably better than any film I have seen in the alst several years. That means that inspiration is like a ghost that arrived from somewhere, not discriminating between those with a degree and those without one”.
In July 2007 the same film won the first award for debuts at the international film festival ELEKTRIČNE PODGANE SANJAJO VIDEO SANJE (ELECTRIC RATS DREAM VIDEO DREAMS) in Celje (Slovenia). At the award presentation ceremony, the chair of the panel MARK POŽLEP said: “I simultaneously laughed and cried while watching “Spavanje i sanjanje” (“Sleeping and dreaming”), whereas one of the organisers of the festival PETER ZUPANC said: “Every time I feel down I'll just watch Stanka's film and I'll feel better immediately”.
The film “Ubojite misli” was also at the 54th CANNES FILM FESTIVAL in the section entitled “Short Film Corner”. Owing to the then presentation, the organisers of the international film festival in Torino – since they exceptionally liked the film – invited Stanka Gjurić to participate in their reputable festival at the and of 2007 as a guest author out of competition.
At the international ALUCINE TORONTO, film festival, her film “Ubojite misli” won THE HONOURABLE MENTION AWARD even though ten artists from Croatia participated, most of whom are distinguished film makers. In the exposition, ANDRES LAROTA (one of the members of tha panel) described the film “Ubojite misli” as poetic, deeply emotional and moving.
Despite the strong competition, Stanka Gjurić also participated with two short films in additional programme of the PULA FILM FESTIVAL this year.
Stanka Gjurić's  successful film making – it is safe to say  - is the result of her indisputable talent, particularly because she is  the sole author of her films: she is the director, the camera man, writes screenplay and even installs them, fits them and assembles them. And, as if it were not enough, in her award-winning film “Ubojite misli” she even sings the folk song from the Croatian region of Međimurje “Vehni, vehni fijolica” (“You Are Wilting, You Are Wilting, My Violet”).
In July 2007, at the 5th international FESTIVAL KRATKOG FILMA MOSTAR (THE SHORT FILM FESTIVAL MOSTAR) in Bosnia and Herzegovina, she again won one of numerous awards. In the category of independent film makers (there was only two categories), it was her film “Ubojite misli” that again won another award – the first award. The member of the international panel VALENTINA MINDOLJEVIC  commented: “The decision was unanimous, i.e. the members of the panel decided that Stanka Gjurić's film significantly differs from the rest in its originality. Everything else has already been seen”.
Gjurić was recently narrowly selected in the famous online competition FILMAKA in Los Angeles, which earned her the right to present her new fil on the same subject (“Prophecy”). This will be decided on by the famous  Hollywood actors and directors WERNER HERZOG, PAUL SCHRADER, WIM WENDERS, BILL PULLMAN,COLIN FIRTH et al.
Her success is almost incredible, given the fact that she has been creating films only since October 2006.
It is important to mention that both professionals as well as amateurs equally participate in all the  aforementioned festivals. The only exception is the amateur online  competition at the Pula Film Festival.
Still, poetry has remained Stanka's basic preoccupation  and love.
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THE 2007 ZVONIMIR GOLOB AWARD
LAUREATE: STANKA GJURIC

The award that is named after the poet ZVONIMIR GOLOB is presented by Udruga branitelja, invalida i udovica Domovinskog rata Podravke (The Podravka Association of Veterans, Handicaped Persons and widows from the Homeland War) for the most beautiful unpublished love poem. This year's laureate is poet STANKA GJURIC for her poem “U mom snu” (“In My Dream”).
The award's exposition titled “Svećenica erosa” (”The Priestess of Eros”) was written by ZLATKO TOMIČIC chairman of the Awards Committee:
There are very few Croatian women writers who have devoted the best part of their poetic oeuvre to love as the great poet Stanka Gjurić has. Stanka Gjurić's poetry is hermetic and an answer to her enigma should be sought. Yet the verse of love emerges always and everywhere, through almost all her verse. In her numerous collections of poetry, Stanka Gjurić has shown great poetic mastery and granted love, with which she has showered the world and made the lovers of true poetry happy. If there is anyone among contemporary Croatian female poets who deserves an award for the most beautiful love poem, it is Stanka Gjurić. We congratulate her on her success in the spiritual realm, in which the love flower, with its special smell and charm, comes to blossom and grow on the Croatian poetic Parnassus.
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