Monika Herceg

In Croatian, lovostaj means " closed season" -- a time during the year when hunting is prohibited. Animals that are hunted by humans are allowed to relax during this time of year, not having to live in fear of being shot. The poems gathered in this award-winning collection by Monika Herceg use this symbolism to explore new ways to express the horrors women the world over have been, and are continually, forced to deal with in a painfully patriarchal world.

Initial Coordinates meditates on Monika Herceg’s earliest childhood memories in a small rural village near Petrinja in central Croatia as war breaks out in the 1990s. It can be read as a magical realist novel in verse, exploring the history of a family through financial hardships, domestic violence, animal abuse, and the overall decline of village life. Drawing directly on Croatian mythology, this bold, unforgettable work mimics oral traditions, reflecting the people whose lives helped shape Herceg’s voice and perspective, one very much rooted in the resilience of nature’s rhythms.

"Naked Athena" leads off Theodore Van Alst Jr.'s 2020 Portland Protest Portfolio in this 2021 volume of Gobshite Quarterly. This issue also contains: Essays by Catalunyan Cristina lvarez Lopez & PDXer Josh Lubin. Poems by Croatian poets Tomislav Marijan Bilosnic & Croatian Marija Dejanovic & Monika Herceg, New Yorker poet J. Randall Brett, Greek poets Phoebe Giannisi & Thanos Gogos & Vasileia Oilonomou, Lithuanian poets Ausra Kaziliūnaite & Rimas Uzgiris; Estonian poet Triin Paja, & Washingtonian poet Armin Tolentino. Stories by Slovenian & Russian & Oregon writers Andrej Blatnik & Andrej Sen-Senkov & Joy McDowell. Graphix & Comics by Lithuanian artist Migle Anusauskaite (profiled in the Dec. 23, 2019 New Yorker Talk of the Town), Melbournian artist Michael Fikaris, multimedia PDXer Leanne Grabel, & Croatian artist Miroslav Nemeth.Parallel text languages in this issue include English, Bulgarian, Spanish, Croatian, Chinese, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, Greek, Icelandic, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovenian, Serbian, Swedish, Swiss German, Tagalog.