In her poetry collection Where Do Dreams Hide During the Day?, Lilijana Homovec returns to poetry – the literary space from which she has, in fact, always emerged. After three poetry collections and the novels Someone Always Leaves Firstand In the Time of Tall Grasses, her voice is once again condensed into a shorter form, yet the themes that have accompanied her throughout her writing remain: closeness and loss, the body and ageing, togetherness, memory, departures, everyday life, and small acts of resistance.
Her poems arise from seemingly simple situations – rain, a sofa, a telephone, a glance at an old photograph, walking the dog – yet everyday life suddenly opens up into questions of time, love, and transience. Alongside intimate lyricism, a distinctly social voice also emerges: the poem Game of Thrones responds to wars, dead civilians, capital, and the global logic of power.
Where Do Dreams Hide During the Day? is poetry about life rushing through us – and the attempt to preserve at least some of its moments in words.
🔴 ESAD BABAČIĆ: THE POETICS OF DEPARTURE
The accompanying essay was written by the poet and essayist Esad Babačić, who reads Homovec’s poetry primarily as a poetics of departure, return, and closeness.
At the very beginning, Babačić is struck by a line:
“Ah, nothing special happened, life simply rushed through me.”
For him, this is almost the guiding principle of the collection: life passes too quickly, while poetry attempts to capture its brief farewells. In Homovec’s poetry, departure is never merely a loss; her writing continually returns to people, the body, everyday activities, and the possibilities of closeness.
He particularly emphasises her ability to transform the ordinary into a poetic situation. Her poems do not require elevated settings – a sofa, rain, a kitchen, or a view through a window are enough.
Babačić writes:
“Closeness is the only poem that survives.”
And it is precisely in this closeness that he also recognises the courage of her writing: the ability to speak about love, the passing of time, and her own vulnerability without resorting to irony that would invalidate the emotion before it could even be expressed.
Read Esad Babačić’s accompanying essay, “The Poetics of Departure”
“Life Simply Rushed Through Me”
In August 2026, three poems from the new collection were published on Jantarna lastovka: Let It Rain, Discovery, and Seriously About the Truth.
The poem Discovery begins with an encounter with a former image of oneself. A young woman with wide-open eyes looks out from the past towards the woman she has become, with grey hair and wrinkled skin.
The answer to the question of what happened is almost brutally simple:
“Life simply rushed through me.”
For Homovec, ageing is not an abstract theme. It is inscribed in the body, the skin, the hair, and memory, yet without pathos. The poet knows how to suddenly interrupt sadness with humour, a colloquial expression, or an entirely ordinary detail.
It was precisely this combination of seriousness and humour, tenderness and a sharp edge that Jantarna lastovka also highlighted when announcing the collection.
Read the poems Let It Rain, Discovery, and Seriously About the Truth
Game of Thrones: From the Intimate to the Political
The collection, however, is not confined solely to the intimate sphere.
In July 2026, two further poems, Game of Thrones and Because You Are Not Here, were published, revealing two very different dimensions of Homovec’s poetics.
Because You Are Not Here is a poem of absence. A romantic relationship is revealed through the things that will suddenly no longer be there: a telephone call, dinner for two, a walk by the sea, a touch, shared plans.
Game of Thrones, on the other hand, turns outwards. The poet observes a world of wars, capital, dead children, and political narratives used to justify violence. Private vulnerability becomes a social question: how many images of violence can we continue to see before they cease to disturb us?
It is precisely this range that gives the collection its breadth: from the empty half of a bed to global displays of power.
Read the poems Game of Thrones and Because You Are Not Here
The Poetry of Everyday Objects
In his accompanying essay, Esad Babačić astutely observes that, in Lilijana Homovec’s work, poems become almost tools of everyday life.
They contain washing, cooking, lying on the sofa, walking the dog, screens, photographs, rain, and small domestic routines. Yet the poet shifts them by a few centimetres – and it is precisely in this shift that poetry happens.
Her language remains accessible, direct, and often conversational. She does not hide behind hermeticism. This is precisely why the moments when pain or existential insight suddenly emerges from the ordinary are all the more striking.
As Babačić writes, what surprised him most was how much freedom of expression and light he discovered in the poems, even in the most difficult moments.
Lilijana Homovec: From Poetry to the Novel and Back Again
Lilijana Homovec began her literary career as a poet. Before her new collection, she published Tako je, O sebi, and Nariši nekaj name. Only later did she venture into novel writing with Hirondelle, publishing Someone Always Leaves First and In the Time of Tall Grasses.
The transition between poetry and prose did not represent a rupture. Her novels, too, explore ageing, the female body, departures, family relationships, love, and time. In Where Do Dreams Hide During the Day?, however, these motifs are once again condensed into verse.
The online bookshop Galarna already lists the new collection among its latest releases.
