Literary Criticism of Her Work

Poetry is a state of clairvoyance
illuminating the language.
Not the opposite. Not the opposite.

The illuminated language is an instrument
on which then I play
the tireless news about Myself.

(Book 67, poem 7)

Antun Šoljan
About the book “Plamen i svijeća” (Flame and the Candle), Belgrade, 1962:
“It is a flame which is really burning… Deep, honest, great poetry.”
Antun Šoljan
About the book “Krasna nesuglasja” (Fair disharmonies), Zagreb, 1970.
“It is in this deep and passionate poetry that her talent reaches its peak. This poetess of mystical love and helplessness speaks about the lives of everyone of us… I hope it will enrich other reader’s souls in the same way it has enriched mine....This is about an honest and passionate search, expressed in words accessible only to true poets.

Zoran Miši
About the anthology of Indian literatures “Hiljadu lotosa” (A Thousand Lotuses) Belgrade, 1971.
“The book by Vesna Krmpotić is not only an anthology of poetry but also one of literature, culture, philosophy and religion. In India these disciplines have not been separate for centuries. Normally such a book would have required extensive academic teamwork. This work has been done by the poet alone with supreme dedication, love and knowledge in the tradition in which the greatest accomplishments have come to pass. It will be a legacy for generations to come. Thanks to her, we are richer for having this extraordinary book sung in the language of pure poetry and exposed in such an inventive and non-conventional way that the anthologists of Indian literature around the world could look upon it with admiration and even a pang of envy.”

Miodrag Pavlović
About the book of poetry “Ljevanica za Igora” (A Candle for Igor), Belgrade, 1979 and “Vilin svlak” (Fairy’s Slough), Zagreb, 1983.
“Her book of poetry is a complete investigation of being-inspired, meaningful, and with far-reaching intuitive perception....it is clear and unambiguous to the greatest extent possible....I’ve read this book with utmost reverence”
“Vesna Krmpotić has been equally endowed with the gift of words and of music, a poetic form and the ability to communicate an experience of ultimate depth....What can be said about this poetry, about how to analyse it, when everything in it is clear and explicit and when it reaches all the goals it set out without any difficulty?....Its metaphysics are equal to that of nature itself.”

Zdravko Zima
About the book of poetry “Jednina i dvojina” (Singular and Dual), Belgrade, 1981.
“The collected works of this poet are a spiritual legacy; her absolutely purified speech has been filtered through the author’s entangled conflicts with the world and with herself. The voice of Krmpotić’s wisdom is of almost unearthly beauty, resounding like an echo of a faraway pagan priest.”

Mark Strand
Exotic, energetic, and astohishingly learned, EYES OF ETERNITY is one of the most unusual books I have ever read. Vesna Krmpotic's insights lead her far beyond the safety of conventional notions by which we recognize the self into a beautiful and precarious lyricism. This is truly a spiritual autobiography, a meditation on the sources of being, a compendium of revelations, an original vision of what it means to be oneself.

Charles Simić
About the book “”Dijamantni faraon (Eyes of Eternity), New York, 1989.

Draško Redžep
“In this autobiography (“Eyes of Eternity”), so far the most consistent and sublime in modern Croatian literature, this poet never stops breathing life into and writing her own vision of an experience which immediately stands out due to its refinement and erudition.

Tvrtko Kulenović
About the honored book “Eyes of Eternity.”
“In between biographic and travel accounts, an essay is inserted equally inseparable from both, curbed by sparkling wisdom that is independent and poetic even when interpreting the ideas of others.”

Ranko Marinković
On the occasion of Goran’s Award for the book “Brdo iznad oblaka” (The Hill above Clouds), Zagreb, 1989.
“I’ve known Vesna for a long time and I think she was a unique figure when she first emerged as a young poetess with her brilliant poetry. The Hill above Clouds is a supreme work of art in which the author transformed poeticized her suffering and expressed this in poetry. I was very happy indeed to hear that she received the award of my dear late friend.”

Jure Kaštelan
About the awarded book “The Hill above Clouds,” Zagreb, 1989.
“This book is the first that is thought, lived and written in the Croatian language. It is communicating something that cannot be communicated.”

Krsto Papić
On the occasion of Goran’s award for the book “The Hill above Clouds,” Zagreb, 1989
“It is a great and stirring work. Vesna Krmpotić’s spiritual strength is unparalleled, a rare planetary occurrence. Goran’s award is part of well deserved honor that we owe this great writer.”

Alija Isaković
“There is no doubt that her most important work is ‘The Hill above Clouds,’ which falls into the category of writings destined happen to an author or to a literature”(Zagreb, 1989).

Jure Kaštelan

“I’ve read this book (“Košulja sretnog čovjeka,”The Shirt of a Happy Man) and I feel as if I have had a dream (a great one) that I will never forget. And that dream is boundless in its quality of being “one with everything.” It belongs equally to the universe, the earth and every man as well as to plants, water, minerals and fire. An open book of life (of all the things alive and those too distant to reach), it radiates a light almost too bright to be looked at in which we see what is essential both close at hand and far away. The book is both esoteric and exoteric, closed and transparent. Her authors are many but the writer is only one; this poetry comes as an inspiration from God and Vesna is one of the writers to express this inspiration through the creative act of writing poetry. She is not the only one in the history of humankind but is one among them. Vesna Krmpotić has given her words and poetry an aura of personal essence and expressive independence. She has moved her own fairytale into the limitless realm of dreams. The “Shirt of a Happy Man” is a unique anthology. It is not a collection of selected texts, it is an independent, mature dream of communion with the world. It is a comprehensive-philosophical-poetic work with Homeric wings, intoxicating like Baudelaire’s “bell.” And more precisely, it is also a modern book that is “thirsty” and quenches our thirst.
This book is complex but harmoniously consistent in its organisation. It is a perfectly cut and polished diamond, complete in its internal interpretation and its analytic criticism.”

Dušan Pajin
Review of the second edition of “A Thousand Lotuses,” Belgrade, 1987.
“Vesna Krmpotić has accomplished a task more demanding than the task before an Indian person who wants to present in one book European literature from its ancient beginnings, such as Greek and Nordic epics, up to the 17th century. I say ‘more demanding’ because she had before her a task many times greater than an author of such a selection from the European literature would have due to the vast scope and variety of the material.”

S. M. Kočan
On the honored book of poetry “Orphelia,” 1987.
“It could not be said that the poetry of Vesna Krmpotić has not been esteemed for its positive value. It has! But not nearly as much as it deserves. I’ll be very clear: we have a poet of the highest quality, which is clearly evident in every new book but reactions to it here are modest and insignificant, reflecting our typical self-negating, self-contemptuous, literary environment. We should take great pride in what this poet has been offering us.”

Branimir Bošnjak
“She is an extraordinary poet with a characteristic and recognizable voice in Croatian and Yugoslav literature.... Human suffering, the tragedy of our Western civilization that has been fertilized by her experience of Eastern civilization, has opened Vesna Krmpotić to a road of poetic and fictional experiences so far unknown in our literature.”

Tonko Maroević
About the book “Sedam koraka oko vatre” (Seven steps around the fire), Zagreb 1999.
”Having mentioned the dizzying arithmetic (in all 11,664 poems), we are reminded of Dante’s symbolism of the circle and its structure with its emphatic transcendental pointers and metaphysical background. Like Dante, Krmpotić sees divine providence in the ordering and organization of her work. Furthermore, she does not consider herself to be the author of the books written in this cycle. They are dedicated to the Author par excellentiam, God Himself.
This extraordinary work in progress (the book “108x108") seems really to be writing itself. The speaker who has a dialogue with the poet in this cycle of poems is directly addressing the one who is holding the pen in her hand.

Charles Simic
“It is her lyrical, phenomenological and psychological precision that makes her sentences so concise and it is this exactness that is the most outstanding feature of Krmpotic’s poetry. This woman is wise and unforgettable. In every succeeding essay the reader is offered a clearer insight into the inner Self while at the same time all the obstacles to reaching it are described. The book is characterised by an extraordinary dramatic progression. It gets so tense that the reader feels as if he or she is being caught up in a strange kind of novel, one which can be classified as the greatest fiction, such as the one Stevens and Borghese dreamed about and wrote about.” A review of the book “Eyes of Eternity” (“Dijamantni Faraon,” New York, 1977).