Nikada i sad

The poems are layered, postmodern: eruptive semantics, rhythm and paradox, with the ferocity with which space stamps time. Rem, by self-denial of the theoretical subject, destroys the illusions of stability – the lyrical self is torn between intimacy, existential crisis and cultural references.

The self-denial of the theoretical subject's power over the establishment of any stable categories about himself and about/in his text is paradoxically precisely his linguistic power to which he is blind, and which, along with the quotation generators from the theoretical, literary and media worlds (Bambi Molesters, Bare, Barthes, M. S. Mađer, Despotov, Mate Bašić, Štulić, Ivan Kozarac…), is a very potent core on which the text grows in all the splendor of the proliferation of its signifiers…

The style is demanding: intertextuality, wordplay, irony, gynecologicalization of language (as a critique or demystification of the body/text). The collection recreates the experience of departure, travel, contacts with other cultures – a cruel reality where the subject tears off parts of himself. Criticism emphasizes the eruptiveness and layering – Rem's poetry is not pathetic, but lucid, cynical and deeply introspective.

The book is important in Rem's opus of the 2000s – a transition from earlier works towards mature lyrics, where "never" meets "now" at a moment that is always too late or too early. It is appreciated as one of Rem's most demanding and most layered collections.