Kiss the Eyes of Peace: Selected Poems 1964–2014

by Tomaž Šalamun, Brian Henry (translator)

An authoritative volume representing the vast oeuvre of one of the twentieth century’s most brilliant and visionary poets.

Widely regarded as some of the most important and innovative poetry from postwar Europe, Tomaž Šalamun’s work offers a singularly thrilling reading experience. Sharp and subtle, Šalamun’s rhythms intertwine with an incantatory force; his prescient, liberatory politics and poetics pulse like a heartbeat. In Kiss the Eyes of Peace, the histories of Slovenia, the former Yugoslavia, and Europe are broken into kaleidoscopic harmonies of terror and friends and family talk to each other under the sun as snow, apples, and deer mingle with blood and bones, with salt and cabbage, with gold, silk, and wine, and with God and heaven in the sand and grass.

“Love tore apart all my theories,” writes Šalamun. His oracular poems, suffused with mystic pronouncements that confound and delight, are as moving as they are eerie. And yet, if “every true poet is a monster,” Šalamun’s profound imagination also offers us peace—grace, even—in the wildness and wilderness of his “May everything erupt on a clear day, just as it is, / into sacredness and the beauty of the life.”

Translated from the Slovenian and curated by esteemed author and translator Brian Henry, this expansive arrangement is the first of its kind to offer a comprehensive English-language retrospective of Šalamun’s storied career.

Genres: Poetry

313 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 21, 2024

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

[Finn]

This anthology had a lot of pieces that were misses for me, but the "hits" were extremley powerful. In terms of an anthology of this length, I was not expecting to like every single poem involved. This is also why I am not giving it a "star" rating. I don't want to be the first person to have done so and dictate the entire ranking.
Favorites of mine included:

I WANT VERSE TAUT
GRASS
IMPERIALISM TEARS OFF MY HEAD
SONNET OF POWER
I PROMISE YOU
PHOTO WITH A YAZOO
THE DEAD
THE DEATH OF FRANK O'HARA
THE WARNING OF THE SPHINX
BLOOD IS SPURTING FROM SOMEONE'S NOSE
UMBRELLA IN A BATHTUB
BONE

[Lindsey Z · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF @ 23%

[Marcela · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is Marcela Pizzato, she went to Goodreads
With her dog Spock to write a review
so that she’d have a review to give.
And this is history.