Andrej Medikj Lazarevski

- North Macedonia -

Andrej Medikj Lazarevski (2001, Skopje) is a poet, editor, copywriter and organizer of cultural events and festivals. He graduated from the Institute of Philosophy at the Faculty of Philosophy and is currently studying at the Department of General and Comparative Literature at the Faculty of Philology “Blaze Koneski” at UKIM in Skopje.

 

He is the author of the poetry collections Conversations with Her (2021, Data Pesnopoj) and Prayer Discourses (2022, 2023 – 2nd revised and expanded edition, PNV Publishing) and of one e-booklet Black Under the Nails (2024, Kultura Beta). 

 

He is the founder of the Association for the Affirmation of Youth Culture Culture Beta, the organizer of the literary events Poetic Episode and Klinci, the festival coordinator of the Philosophical Film Festival, a member of the executive board of the Philosophical Society of Macedonia, a board member of the Skopje Poetry Festival, and part of the team of Kliker Marketing.

 

He has participated in various poetry readings and festivals (Stih u regiji, Struga Poetry Evenings, Poetry Night in Velestovo, Skopje Poetry Festival, ArtArea…). His poems have been published in domestic periodicals and translated into Serbian for the literary magazines Bludni Stih and Rukopisi, into Croatian for the magazine Poetry of the Croatian Writers’ Association, and into English for Selection from A New Birth of the Word (an Anthology of Macedonian Young Poetry), published by Struga Poetry Evenings. His poems are included in the anthologies Macedonian Love Lyrics (ed. Vesna Mojsova-Chepishevska and Ivan Antonovski, Matica Makedonska, 2024), New Birth of the Word: Anthology of Young Macedonian Poetry (ed. Vesna Mojsova-Chepishevska and Ivan Antonovski, PNV Publishing, 2023), and Music, Now and Yet (ed. Vladimir Martinovski, Struga Poetry Evenings, 2022). In 2024, he received the "Enhalon" award for the best poem by a young author read at the Struga Poetry Evenings.

 

 


On the Poetry of Andrej Medikj Lazarevski

 

Andrej Medikj Lazarevski is the author of two poetry collections: Conversing with Her (2021) and Prayer Discourses (2022; 2023 – second, revised, and expanded edition). He is also the author of an exhibition of collages and installations, Dirt Under the Nails (2024), which resulted in an art е-book. His books have been reviewed by several literary critics from N. Macedonia, and below are excerpts from some of the reviews of his poetic work.

 

Regarding the poetry collection Prayer Discourses, Professor Vesna Tomovska from the Institute of Classical Studies at the Faculty of Philosophy in Skopje states:

 

"The title of the collection immediately signals to the reader what they will encounter within its pages, culminating in the final poem [Prayer Discourse], confirming its justification and precision until the very last page. Discourses, speeches, verbal addresses, dialogues, linguistic forms, the mimesis of speech, rhythm, and harmony—an effort to tame linguistic elements into a new, unique system that generates meaning as a prayer to the Divine; observed, experienced, and felt through various epiphanies and identities.

 

Writing is an unveiling, even when there is no intent to open the Hidden Chambers. This writing seeks to unveil and proclaims that within, there is Something that remains an Open Question: What are you? Where are you? Are you in the heavens, ...beneath the earth, ...in the room, ...in the heart, ...in the head, ...in thoughts? This question remains open, with responses shaped into poems/discourses/prayers that fill the space of this collection, arranged into several sections that conditionally define the Poet's position, titled accordingly: The Initial Call, Seemingly Devoted, Clearly Devoted, Are There Any Questions? and Conclusion.

 

This structuring and naming of sections suggest a kind of Wholeness, a Totality (hole/totum), marked by a deliberate beginning, middle, and end (Aristotle, Poetics). It invites a linear, diachronic movement through the text, a gradual, devoted harvesting of its contents, much like a Procession of mystics journeying toward Eleusis. Outside the Temple, in the Space freed from the Sacred, this Whole forms a coherent discursive shape with necessary textual divisions that delineate linguistic structures with the clear purpose of convincingly guiding and transporting the reader toward the final goal—toward fulfillment, toward completion, toward Totality:

 

"I began to write for you, / dedicated poems and speeches / I composed poetry the size of a novel, / even some sonnets / now we are whole!"

 

Regarding the poetry collection Conversing with Her, the writer, poet, theater scholar, and professor at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Skopje, Ana Stojanoska, states:

 

"With this collection, Andrej Medikj Lazarevski demonstrates, expresses, and proves how a poet—I do not say a young poet deliberately—grapples with a surge of ideas, emotions, and situations within his lyrical yet also epic vision of everyday life and how he transforms this into an aesthetic relationship with the world he creates and develops before our eyes.

 

His verses play with themselves, with the poetic heritage, and with the audience, who eagerly devour each new line. And that audience will find itself in a uniquely open dialogue with the lyrical subject—just as he does with them!"

 

Philosopher Dragica Soluncheva expands on this by stating:

 

"Conversing with Her is a polysemic erotosophy, an endless dialogue with captivating interlocutors—the beloved, death, the audience, philosophy, poetry. Reading this poetic manuscript seems to unfold ad infinitum, much like Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence of the same, where 'the same' is, in fact, difference.

 

The reader contemplates the noumenal across its various aesthetic metamorphoses. The same verses reveal different essences through shifts in discourse and changes in the interlocutor. The presence of philosophical teachings is intensely felt—as profound internal trials, as supplications, as the longings of a schizo-subject disappearing in the search for a true essence.

 

In Lazarevski’s love poetry, Plato, Kierkegaard, and Saint Gregory of Nyssa converge."

 

She further adds:

 

"The entire poetry collection is a call toward Truth, a cry toward Deus absconditus, even in moments of negation, as in the poet’s exclamation: ‘I do not need God beside me to feel exalted.’ The poet senses the presence that remains silent, yearns for divine inspiration from the muses, becomes a mimesis of immortality—a symphonic harmony dedicated to a singular longing."

 

Young poet Sofija Todoroska, commenting on Lazarevski’s work, states:

 

"The stylistic and expressive pillar of the entire work (Prayer Discourses) bears a strong influence from Byzantine philosophy, both in its terminology and thematic essence. Extracting itself from a purely theological context, the poet once again places love on an ontological plane—as absolute freedom and the driving force of human completeness. However, he does not separate it from its corporeal component; rather, he situates it within a spiritual-physical context, found in the communion of two beings."

 

She further adds:

 

"In this new mythology of the beyond, the poet proclaims an original aesthetic within the process of eternal creation, emerging from the touch between two opposites—the earthly and the transcendent, the sacred and the profane."

More about the poet

Poetry

  1. the world will not be saved by the birth of the nine billionth person / светот нема да се спаси со раѓањето на деветмилијардитиот човек

  2. is the garden yours, alice? / твоја ли е градината, алиса?

  3. / боја

  4. From The Diabolical Nature of Our Eroticism / Дијаболичноста на нашата еротика

  5. We are nameless / Безимени сме

  6. They … / Тие...

  7. i don’t want to get my pelvis shattered in war / не сакам да ми ја искршат карлицата во војна

  8. passage / премин

  9. i’m simply withered / просто папсав

  10. a witch / вештерка