Katarina Gotic
– b. 1994. Gotic is a Bosnian-Herzegovinian poet dwelling in the in-between: between poetry and conceptual art, learned and her mother tongue(s), Bosnia and Germany, between now and then and then and further then. Katarina is the author of two poetry collections, we need a breathing tongue between (kith books, 2024) and leerlauf (2025), as well as several visual and performance pieces, all rooted in language. She has received numerous grants and awards for her work, including the 2023 Work Stipend for Non-German Literature and the 2024 Research Scholarship for Translators awarded by the Berlin Senate. Katarina has exhibited, performed, and read across Bosnia and Germany. She lives in Berlin.
My home is bordered. Like the carrying currents of our river, the borders are felt: I am not the other, and the other is not me. Somebody tells me: this river is crossable1. One day, I swim across – shore to shore, south to north – in that north, become another:
poet – language = poet(translated)
When I began writing my first book, I began in my mother tongue23. Months of composing and erasing left me with five unordered, crossed-out pages: in all attempts to avoid words resonant with nationalist propaganda, my language was left barren. In fear of drowning, I swam to another; in that other, I became another, and the other with me othered. Here, up north, I line its ‘word-caves’4 – back and forth, here and there – I clothe them until they finally breathe anew. Like Celan, I mistrust my mother tongue. When I inhabit it, I live as a foreigner: I collage56, translate7, scribble8, I reshape what is already written. My language is the language of Diaspora: amalgamated, slow, “always as if translated”9.
A Language always remains a language: a memory, an afterimage. In leerlauf, I capture home in translated idioms. With them, I compose democratic poems with no narrative hierarchy10. I sing them to cut-up photographs of disused shops, restaurants, and factories in my hometown. When I return, I see parts of our street in the collages11.
A language is carried and is carried on shoulders. Like the world. The one that is ours (to us another), I carry through the streets resembling it. Already othered, I leave it before the entrance of otherness12. Back home, I return translated.
And in what language writes a poet(translated)?
A language that is
left, carried (on shoulders), cut-up, sang, captured, “always as if translated”, slow, amalgamated, scribbled, collaged, foreign, clothed, lined, drowned, swam across:
But does it still breathe?
Oh, how it still breathes!
The text was written in consultancy with Adna Muslija (2025).
1Our river is the Sava River, the flowing border between B&H and the EU. The bridge is the point of crossing. For the first time, I crossed it on foot on the 19th of March, 2024. I was allowed to tie a red yarn to the railing in the middle. To not make a symbol. While I tied the red yarn to the railing in the middle, the bridge shook (not making a symbol).
Katarina Gotic, overbound, performance, 2024. Personal archive.
2My first book, we need a breathing tongue between (kith books, 2024), is a collection of poems and performance scores.
Katarina Gotic, CUT / CUT, poem, 2022. Personal archive.
3Katarina Gotic, CUT / CUT, poem, 2022. Personal archive.
4‘wordcaves’ is a Pierre Joris’ translation of Paul Celan’s Worthöhlen in “Kleide die Worthöhlen aus.”
5I collage my mother tongue in VENAC, a collection of works assembled from poems and images published in eight editions of the Yugoslav youth magazine Венац. I found Венац in my family home, under a double hardcover of War and Peace. I took it to Berlin, and VENAC became Венац: a fragment, a collage, a multitude of voices.
Katarina Gotic, pranje ruku, collage, 2022. Personal archive.
6Katarina Gotic, pranje ruku, collage, 2022. Personal archive.
7I translate to my mother tongue in Mijenadaha, an associative translation of Paul Celan’s Atemwende. By annotating, archiving, linking, and citing, Mijenadaha expands into layers of marginal text surrounding the translated poem. My marginalia is personal and embodied, inseparable from myself.
8I scribble my mother tongue in Otkazna Pisma. Collaged from over 180 individual scribbles collected across B&H, Otkazna Pisma are drawn as a response to the political and socio-economic situation in our country. In this project too, I approach my mother tongue indirectly: here our language becomes asemic.
Katarina Gotic, Otkazna Pisma IV, collage, 2024. Personal archive.
9A reference to Anne Carson, referring to Paul Celan.
10This “democratic language” draws from Language poetry, which attempts to alter the traditional hierarchical structure of narrative writing into a juxtaposition of lines.
11Katarina Gotic, leerlauf: [o, i’d kiss the snow], collage, 2024. Personal archive.
12“the entrance of otherness” is Landesamt für Einwanderung – the Berlin Immigration Office. This is where I leave the Germanisms of my family.
Katarina Gotic, zamelte | dihtung, performance, 2024. Personal archive.
– b. 1994. Gotic je bosansko-hercegovačka pjesnikinja koja boravi u međuprostoru: između poezije i konceptualne umjetnosti, usvojenih i maternjih jezika, Bosne i Njemačke, između sad i onda i onda i ranije onda. Katarina je autorka dvije knjige poezije, we need a breathing tongue between (kith books, 2024) i leerlauf (2025), kao i nekoliko vizualnih i performans radova ukorijenjenih u jeziku. Nagrađivana je brojnim priznanjima i stipendijama, uključujući i radnu stipendiju za ne-njemačku književnost 2023. i istraživačku stipendiju za prevoditeljske radove 2024. godine. Katarina je izlagala, izvodila i čitala svoje radove širom BiH i Njemačke. Živi u Berlinu.
Moj dom je graničen. Kao struje što nose našu rijeku, i granice se osjete: ja nisam drugi i drugi nisu ja. Neko mi kaže: ta se rijeka može preći1. Jednog dana je preplivavam – obalu do obale, od juga ka sjeveru. U tom sjeveru, postajem druga:
pjesnikinja – jezik = pjesnikinja(prevedena)
Kad počinjem prvu knjigu, počinjem na našem23. Mjeseci komponovanja me ostavljaju sa pet neurednih, iskrižanih strana – u pokušaju da izbjegnem riječi u kojima odjekuje nacionalistička propaganda, moj jezik ostaje jalov. Iz straha od utapanja, plivam u drugi. U tom drugom postajem druga i on sa mnom biva drugačiji. Ovdje, na sjeveru, oblažem mu ‘riječi-špilje’4 – naprijed, nazad, tamo, ovamo – presvlačim ih dok im sve dvorane ne prodišu. Kao Celan, ni ja ne vjerujem maternjem jeziku. Dok u njemu boravim, živim kao strankinja: kolažiram ga56, prevodim7, škrabam8, mijenjam oblik onom što je napisano. Moj jezik je jezik Dijaspore: stopljen, spor, “uvijek kao preveden”9.
Jezik ipak ostaje jezik. Kao sjećanje, pa-slika. U leerlauf, govor doma preslikavam u prevedene idiome. Od njih komponujem demokratske pjesme – one u kojima nema pripovjedačke hijerarhije10. Pjevam ih kolažiranim fotografijama napuštenih radnji, restorana i fabrika mog rodog grada. Kad se vratim, dijelove ulica prepoznajem sa kolaža11.
Jezik se nosi na ramenima. Kao čitav svijet. Ovaj naš (a našem drugi) nosim kroz ulice slične drugom. Posve druga, ostavljam ga pred sjedište drugosti12. Vraćam se prevedena.
Pa, kakav je to jezik kojim piše pjesnikinja(prevedena)?
ostavljen, nošen (na ramenima), isječen, spojen, opjevan, preslikan, “uvijek kao preveden”, spor, stopljen, išaran, kolažiran, stran, presvučen, obložen, utopljen, preplivan:
a da li još diše?
o, kako još diše!
Tekst je napisan u konsultaciji s Adnom Muslija (2025).
1“Naša rijeka” je rijeka Sava, vodena granica BiH i EU. Most na Savi, tačka je prelaska. Prvi put ga prelazim pješke 19.03.2024. Rečeno mi je da smijem zavezati crvenu vunu na ogradu u sredini. Njom ne napraviti simbol. Dok je vežem, u sredini, most se trese. Ne pravi simbol.
Katarina Gotic, overbound, performans, 2024. Lična arhiva.
2Moja prva knjiga, we need a breathing tongue between (kith books, 2024), zbirka je poezije i partitura performansa.
Katarina Gotic, CUT / CUT, pjesma, 2022. Lična arhiva.
3
Katarina Gotic, CUT / CUT, pjesma, 2022. Lična arhiva.
4‘riječi-špilje’ su Pierre Jorisov prijevod Paul Celanove složenice ‘Worthöhlen’, iz pjesme “Kleide die Worthöhlen aus”.
5Jezik kolažiram u projektu VENAC, skupu radova sastavljenih od stihova i slika objavljenih u osam izdanja jugoslavenskog časopisa za učenike i mlade, Венац. Венац pronalazim u porodičnoj kući ispod duplog izdanja Rat i Mir. Odnosim ga u Berlin, gdje od Венца postaje VENAC: fragment, spoj, mnoštvo glasova.
Katarina Gotic, pranje ruku, kolaž, 2022. Lična arhiva.
6Katarina Gotic, pranje ruku, kolaž, 2022. Lična arhiva.
7Jezik prevodim u Mijenadaha, asocijativnom prijevodu Paul Celanove zbirke Atemwende sa njemačkog na BHMS. Komentarisanjem, arhiviranjem, povezivanjem i citiranjem, Mijenadaha se širi u slojeve marginalnog teksta koji okružuju prevedenu pjesmu. Moja marginalija je lična, utjelovljena, neodvojiva od mene.
8Jezik škrabam u radu Otkazna Pisma. Kolažirana od preko 180 pojedinačnih škrabotina išaranih širom BiH, Otkazna Pisma su nastala kao odgovor na političku i socio-ekonomsku situaciju u našoj zemlji. I u ovom radu, maternjem jeziku pristupam indirektno: jezik u njemu postaje asemičan.
Katarina Gotic, Otkazna Pisma IV, kolaž, 2024. Lična arhiva.
9Anne Carson o poeziji Paul Celana.
10Ovaj “demokratski jezik” nastavlja se na ideje Language poezije koja tradicionalnu hijerarhijsku strukturu teksta mijenja u jukstapoziciju.
11Katarina Gotic, leerlauf: [o, i’d kiss the snow], kolaž, 2024. Lična arhiva.
12“Sjedište drugosti” je Landesamt für Einwanderung – berlinski imigracioni ured. Pred njim ostavljam germanizme moje porodice.
Katarina Gotic, zamelte | dihtung, performans, 2024. Lična arhiva.
