The Life of a Poet

Tomaž Šalamun
Translated from the Slovenian

Love tore apart all my theories.The stars devoured me.I’m anonymous, what I always wished for so badly.I am light, a tiny strand of light.It’s truly fantastic how the stars eat me.Again and again, what endless food I am.And then: pink!I touch some hair,pink! I write a poem, expand eternity.Like here now: the Yaddo castle is an outpost for the renewal of                the world.I look at a tree: I see, I sense, I knowI love Maruška, Maruška loves me.A ladybug flies to my shoulder.That’s Ana.Now she is painting or walking in puddleswith her mommy and saying:“I won’t have a birthday until Tomaž returns.”And a beautiful, multicolored bird crashes into my window,the souls of friends, connected in a gentle net around the planet.None of them is jealous of any otherbecause we’re all lovers.Then I take ten letters to the post office, only love letters.For overseas, for here.Poets pretend with physical contact and reading.Junk! Junk! We splash into the sun.All this goes too quickly for philosophers. They think we’re a bit crazy and simple-mindedbecause we use language like children.Hey, you, blockheads, tedious pedestrians!Wouldn’t the world be more exquisiteif you were more physical toward your masters?Boom! Boom! The kisses of the people fall on my head.What a bang.I hope that I’ll hang on,that I’ll be able to return all this love forever.

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Image of Tomaž Šalamun

Tomaž Šalamun (1941-2014) published more than 55 books of poetry in Slovenia. Translated into over 25 languages, his poetry received numerous awards, including the Jenko Prize, the Prešeren Prize, the European Prize for Poetry, and the Mladost Prize. In the 1990s, he served for several years as the Cultural Attaché for the Slovenian Embassy in New York, and later held visiting professorships at various universities in the U.S.

Image of Brian Henry

Brian Henry is the author of eleven books of poetry, most recently Permanent State (Threadsuns,2020). He has translated Tomaž Šalamun’s Woods and Chalices (Harcourt, 2008), Aleš Debeljak’s Smugglers (BOA Editions, 2015), and five books by Aleš Šteger. His work has received numerous honors, including two NEA fellowships, the Alice Fay di Castagnola Award, a Howard Foundation fellowship, and the Best Translated Book Award. He is editing and translating a comprehensive volume of Selected Poems by Tomaž Šalamun for Milkweed Editions.

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