The Selected Poems

by Tomaž Šalamun

T omaz Šalamun (Zagreb, 1941) es el primer poeta de Eslovenia que se aventuró a intervenir en el canon literario establecido, parodiando la poesía predominante. Su poesía rompe con las formas poÃticas tradicionales y crea textos juguetones, irónicos, provoc

Genres: Poetry

124 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1991

About the author

Tomaž Šalamun was a Slovenian poet, who has had books translated into most of the European languages. He lived in Ljubljana and occasionally teaches in the USA. His recent books in English are The Book for My Brother, Row, and Woods and Chalices.

Reviews

[Steven Godin · Rating 5 out of 5]

immortality, verbs of the sun,
stop, rest, lay the flutes aside,
I sail, I sail in the silent seed of animals
in the circles of turning, uprooted stick of night
a stone, Pan, mountains of evenness
ides of March, door to dawn
a thousand seas, ash of lava,
a thousand furrows of tranquility
I am dealt out, underfoot, great in tiny vermin's eyes
leaning back
O hot Israelite's hoof, carriage game
consistent denominators of even days
I call water, I sacrifice the lamb
splendor of stable, green stone of blossoming
I fall in the lime of grace
who tears daises, white blossoms of itch?
to whom does the raindrop fall?
joyfulness, wind, slate of light, sea of burden
wake up stable hands, in the name of god the day is coming
pick up fern
rest weary rivers, the avalanche flocks
I will kill you Israel
body of Gilgamesh set among flowers
Uruk, the bait, Indians on the rafts
targets, breasts, people's trinkets
bowels, pails, ruler of toll roads
silently flutter the angels, silently in the nets of stars
I won't be plucked, I won't kneel on the prints of trains
I won't be wakened by shepherds
I'll breathe lght, I'll utter aims
the strength of body, I'll spread avalanche
hear flutes, plant a tree
let it be clear what the hands of the king are
clear the hill, clear the life
clear the path of the Milky Way, clear charity

[Mika · Rating 4 out of 5]

creo firmemente que la poesía te sabe diferente cuando quieres a la persona que te la recomienda.
no conocía a Šalamun y ahora sí y creo que eso es estupendo porque me permite tener un panorama más amplio de lo que son las post vanguardias en un sitio como lo es Eslovenia. De todo se aprende: de las imágenes surrealistas constantes también. Es complicado entenderle, por eso creo que hay un punto en el que simplemente me he dejado llevar y ahí es cuando he disfrutado de todas esas mezclas trambóticas y cotidianas con otras que ni pensarlo.
es bonito, me ha gustado. me ha gustado poder hablar y discutir sobre él después.
me gusta leer poesía con ese propósito.

[Jonas Pojdl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cheeky and anarchistic, I was recommended this book by a professor and though I didn't understand a great much of it when I first read it, coming back feels like visiting an old friend. Tomaz is a poet who is in love with everything that is apart from institutions and willing to blend the history of poetry and literature into cunning jokes with a very warm sense of lightheartedness. Very encouraging for young poets.

[A. Kinnereth · Rating 4 out of 5]

«Yo
exijo
amor
incondicional
y
libertad
absoluta.
Por eso
soy
terrible.»

[W.B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book meant more to me when I first read it almost a decade ago. There are many really wonderful, lively poems in here. It's really a testament to how the New York school aesthetic went around the world. Salamun fuses Eastern European lyric traditions with the more urbane mannerisms of sometimes Frank O'Hara, say; other times maybe he's more Frank Lima or Berriganesque...one of the more cowboyish poets of the New York Schoool, anyway. He has poems which are completely his own too. His poetics often has a liberating effect on younger poets when they first encounter it, and people tend to really enjoy all the parodistic moves; he parodies himself just as often as he parodies power structures in politics, art or other bullying ideologies. His signature poems are often these insanely hyperbolic pseudo-narcissistic poems...they're usually quite funny. Much brio, much false naivete...often an art brut sensibility but it's usually a false primitivism from this very urbane poet who moves so fast and so widely on the world stage you'd need NORAD to track him. Prediction: very likely candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature in the next five to ten years.

[Andrew Bourne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I weathered some particularly heinous opening acts in one of NYU's rat-trap-million-dollar-white-crown-molding townhouses, to see this man speak. And he is quite impressive; I caught myself smiling and chuckling throughout. Later, all the rats and bursting female graduate students shushed me for peeing too loudly while the opening act put another coat of wax on his Q&A blabber.

Mr. Salamun's reading voice is... what's the word? Luxuriant. I'm not sure how this is achieved, but I did vocalize the poems in this book by doing my best Salamun impression, including the Slovene accent. He kept refering to himself as 'juicy.'

[Mariana Orantes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Esta no fue la edición que yo leí, pero es la única parecida que encontré, sobre todo porque ahora ya no encuentro mi libro como para subirlo. En fin, el libro que leí de Tomaz Salamun fue editado por la Universidad Veracruzana en su colección Ficciones. Es un libro muy bueno, buen papel, buena edición. Lo conseguí por la módica cantidad de veinte pesos en el remate de la UV en el DF. Algunos poemas me gustaron mucho y otros no tanto. Es disparejo, pero es buen poeta. Así nomás. Sea como sea, me dio muchas ideas y sobre todo me dio gusto leerlo y conocerlo, como que te da fe en el mundo saber que la poesía existe en tan diversas formas.