Full Description
Arc New Voices from Europe and Beyond: 1
The first volume in Arc's New Voices from Europe, a series of anthologies featuring the work of contemporary poets written in what might be described as the 'small' languages of Europe.
The six young Slovenian poets - three male (Uros Zupan, Peter Semolic and Gregor Podlogar) and three female (Vida Mokrin-Pauer, Maja Vidmar and Natasa Velikonja) - who contribute to this anthology are from the post-postmodernist generation, the generation that came of age in the 1990s and that takes the freedoms of an independent nation-state as a given.
Although their work may have more in common with that of poets in wider Europe (even North America) than with their predecessors in the Slovenian cultural tradition (as described in the illuminating introduction to this volume), they write with a distinctiveness and originality that, to quote from the introduction, "traverses the hitherto neglected terrain of colloquial speech, hybrid identities and cultural sensibilities of an urban capitalist milieu".
This is a fascinating introduction to contemporary Slovenian poetry.
"This is the first in a new series of bilingual anthologies from Arc, with the admirable aim of bringing the work of a younger generation of poets across Europe to a wider English-language readership. Six Slovenian Poets fulfils this endeavour with a varied selection of poets under forty, all published for the first time within the past decade and all, in their various ways, breaking with Slovenian literary tradition. These young poets reference the Beckhams, Dolce & Gabbana, Sinead O'Connor and Gilbert and George as well as Paz, Yeats and Auden: poems, as Gregor Podlogar comments in Ana Jelnikar and Stephen Watts' fine translation, for when '54 TV programmes / just aren't enough'."
Modern Poetry in Translation
Contents
Introduction by Ales Debeljak 1. Vida Mokrin-Pauer With an unknown Bosnian on the bus... Gynaecologically long slender fine-rounded fingers... Miracles mildly restore us Andersen's little girl with matches... I'm undecided from wishing. ... Heartless vegetating of a woman with a problem A commentary on the self and on a poem within a poem Once, there was a reaper Sand picture My boy Me, my body-function: a woman poet for the cosmos Architext love Claustrophobia Moving on We sleep in different Smartie 2. Maja Vidmar The house Poet Nigredo; Il rubedo; Albedo The couple How you loved me Prayer of the orange The means On a walk A taste of the rainbow Teacher Presence To my daughter Isaac Pact Winter poem; Spring; The last summer; Autumn poem Idyll 3. Uro' Zupan Garden, Bach Playing God Dreams have come true A tree and a sparrow Nocturne Farewell to philosophy 4. Peter Semolic Father An evening chat Homeless poet writing to his love Sinead's voice Piero della Francesca's angel Reading Octavio Paz Hatchet in a knot The squares of Fuzine On second thought Writing it down Morost, in spring Lines 5. Nata'a Velikonja revolution weed greetings from the back of the class a thank-you 6. Gregor Podlogar The twentieth of August Small things Corinth High ride the streets E-mail Lights of Bombay War inna Babylon Everything Ich bin ein Berliner Ich bin ein Berliner The people are living near to beauty, passing by Random Biographical notes
