Kulturni center Maribor Book Publishing, 102 pages, 2023
INFORMATION AND ORDER (LINK)
The book Anthology of the Best Slovenian Poetry is a selection of translated poetry by some of the most important poets from the last 50 years and promising newcomers.
It includes poems from:
Borut Gombač, Tone Kuntner, Lev Detela, Nevenka Miklič Perne, Tonja Jelen, Marija Švajncer, Valentin Cundrič, Valter Čučkovič, Franjo Frančič, Gregor Lozar
Translation of poetry: Nada Marija Grošelj
Borut Gombač
From Eve till Morn
Behind the roofs a frayed red scarf,
the sun is snuffing out the lights,
waiters unlocking dingy bars
while groggy cleaners smoke outside.
A road machine is sweeping streets
and birds are fluttering from nests,
the postman reeling with his bag,
the gardener tending flower beds.
The road winds on from eve till morn,
we’d set out when the night arrived,
we’d walked through all the city streets
through people’s sleepless dreams, entwined.
Night workers trickling from the factory,
bus drivers waking steering wheels,
the fragrance wafting from the bakery,
the icon of alarm onscreen.
Sweaty sheets and tousled heads,
dripping taps and tanks and pipes,
coffee, milk in steaming cups,
in the glass, a stranger’s eyes.
Tone Kuntner
In Your Heart, Earth
In your heart, earth,
in your heart has settled sorrow,
which, like polluted water, gathers in a stream.
In your heart has taken root an illness,
which is sucked in by the roots of trees.
In your heart has been born a revenge,
which, like a landslide, thuds down on the house.
In your heart, earth,
has settled hatred.
As if no-one loves you any more,
as if no-one loves you any more.
Tonja Jelen
The sense of movement
as I stand on the crossing.
Choked by the air bottled up.
Ticking of thoughts.
They are countless. They burn.
Memory’s fountain darkens my face.
I have slid into time.
Then stopped.
A loner surrounded by density.
Happiness lies in the centre.
Sitting on a bench. The train
has forgotten to arrive.
I’m learning to choose good poems.
Substantiation and clarity – Ingarden
blends into taste – but it is like déjà vu,
flits through my mind.
I rise. It is not mechanisation
alone that can transport me.
Though all is so far away,
I feel I am holding on to a thought.
Marija Švajncer
Bright Faces
It is important
to preserve
memory.
What abides is
bright faces,
those that looked forward.
They saw
green paths
and under their feet
felt fresh grass.
Their eyes blended together with happiness,
curiously sought
other glances
and shone in
what was
called tomorrow.
Bright faces
behind a dark event,
light on the screen
and on crumpled
newspapers.
Evil in the solitary,
a murderer
who murdered light.
Nevenka Miklič Perne
Behind the Edge of the Tongue
Only this silence
which ripples
the water surface
and behind the edge of the tongue
helplessly splashes
against the fir trees
guarding the forest
from everydayness,
only this silence
is my tool.
Valentin Cundrič
Childhood on the Strand
On the strand sits a blind child,
playing with shells
of dying shellfish.
He strokes their eyes
and weeps when they close.
The shellfish return his caresses
and beg him
to die with them …
Oh! the blind boy on the strand,
who has forgotten the world!
On his brow
is the evening
a large broken flower.
Valter Čučkovič
Help
An unknown hand tugs at my sleeve,
aligning me on the zebra crossing, when with
my white limb I hack at the tin river
rushing on both sides of the river bed in the stampedo
of wild cattle in a populated prairie.
My thanks are vain because
the hand has vanished to its side.
Another hand tugs at my sleeve,
aligning me towards the goal because
I am tossed upon the cliffs of forgotten
worries over my position, which is stuck at
the watershed between machine and armchair.
My thanks fade in the wind because
the hand’s sheltered by the crowd in noise.
A woman’s hand tugs at my sleeve,
aligning me with the hut as I am searching
the public good in the form of a urinal,
where the stench is overwhelming and a swarm
of insects is playing on their wingphones.
My thanks drop down the drain because
the lady has clacketed into indifference.
A rough hand tugs at my sleeve,
aligning me with the groove of white-limbed
blindwalkers as I try to circumvent
the revellers in narrow Stolna Street,
where blessed idleness is celebrating.
My thanks are accepted by one born abroad,
affably grunting over a mug of beer.
Your hand tugs at my sleeve,
aligning me with youself in an embrace
which presses from the depths of smothered
solitude when once again is found
what the heart considers lost forever.
I kiss you fervently and in my thoughts
I thank the hands for helping me on my way
towards the goal, which pounced on me while
I was thinking about the poetry collection On the Pier.
Lev Detela
Utopia
i was here years ago
or centuries
i remember
the moon was glowing red
its reflection gliding flat across the restless water
the wild old times
ruled by an atrocious king
whom no-one now remembers
but i still hear
that paupers’ prayer of five hundred years ago
formed like an object of white alabaster
it was a plea for help
against the plague
many died
maybe i died too?
the bad old times
sung by hackneyed lines
Franjo Frančič
Our Men Marching On in Front
Tell me, tell me how you live,
where you go, with whom you sleep,
tell me who will get your vote,
whose are you? We need to know.
If you’re ours, our man,
you may take all that you can,
but if you belong to those,
you’re in for some nasty rows!
There’s room for one truth alone,
nobody’s but our own,
for a friend it can be fixed,
but there’s none for enemies!
Left and right, and right and left,
be our man and don’t be wet,
our army, black and white,
sings black-white with all its might:
Tell me, tell me how you live, where you go,
with whom you sleep …
Gregor Lozar
The Panda III
I heard the call of Dionysus
when I was still young:
I dreamt a dream about the land
where women nurse wolf cubs,
I met a fool with a thousand cards
asking me which life I would like,
I slept the sleep of a man dead drunk
and suffered a bad hangover
when I tried to get used
to daylight.
I dreamt a dream about the harmony of variety,
lived among four walls of concrete,
shot ads that no one dares play.
But where did that stranger come from?
Why does he tell me humanity is divided
into the many, distinguished by money,
and the originals, liked by no one?
Why does he reproach me for not dying in time,
why does he ask me if I want to be
an original or a father?
Where does he know it from? Is he a mind reader?
He says that he has a solution for me.
That I can shoot a film which will
contribute to variety and dispel
the deeply rooted prejudices of anthropomorphism.
He says I’ll get money for that.
Not a whole lot but enough to
father a child in a short time.
He says he has a brilliant project for me.
Would I film pornography for pandas?
Založba knjig Kulturni center Maribor 