Doris Kareva says her work is paying attention

Estonian poet Doris Kareva told ERR cultural programme OP that the core of her work is paying attention, meaning that even watching clouds move can sometimes count as work.

Kareva’s book The Sound of Being, published in late spring in the Ööülikooli raamatukogu book series, brings together her Ööülikool texts. In the book, she describes the present as a hectic period of interruption and said this confused time also affects her as a creator.

“You cannot finish thinking one thought before new information arrives. It is like being at home with small children, when you have to keep switching all the time,” Kareva said. “There is so much, and navigating it while keeping everything in balance takes attention and energy.” To maintain that balance, she recommends focusing on breathing.

Kareva said she was not familiar with long creative blocks. “It seems to me that creation never ends or stops; it simply takes different forms,” she said. She added that she could not describe her working process. “My work is paying attention. Above all. Sometimes watching the movement of clouds is precisely the work.”

In the book, Kareva also writes about spending much of her childhood on her own. She believes this is why love has always interested her. “I wondered what another person was like, because I knew only myself. Discovering and understanding another person is always very interesting,” she said.

Kareva said that loving oneself is as important as loving other people, but acknowledged that becoming friends with oneself is one of the most difficult things in life. “The sharper the difference between how you perceive yourself and how you would like to perceive yourself, the more difficult becoming friends with yourself is. But it is worth practising,” she said, adding that she had not yet become a master at it.