Poker

by Tomaž Šalamun, Toma? ?alamun, Joshua Beckman (Translation)

Poker is Tomaz Salamun's first book of poetry, originally published in 1966 in Slovenia. This edition, vibrantly translated by award-winning poet Joshua Beckman in collaboration with the author, makes Poker available in its entirety in English. As a young poet Salamun edited Perspektive , a progressive cultural and political journal. Communist authorities eventually banned the journal's publication and arrested Salamun. His first two books, Poker (1966) and The Purpose of the Cloak (1968), were released in samizdat . Salamun went on to become one of the most widely respected of European poets and achieved international acclaim, later even serving as the Slovenian cultural attaché in New York City. Salamun has had several collections published in English translation, including The Shepherd, the Hunter (Pedernal, 1992), The Four Questions of Melancholy (White Pine Press, 1997), The Selected Poems of Tomaz Salamun (Ecco Press, 1988), Feast (Harcourt Brace, 2000), A Ballad for Metka Krasovec (Twisted Spoon Press, 2001), and The Book For My Brother (Harvest Books, 2006). Salamun has won the praise of many poets, including James Tate, Robert Creeley, Robert Hass, who celebrates his "love of the poetics of rebellion," and Jorie Graham, who calls his work "one of Europe's great philosophical wonders." Joshua Beckman is the author of three books of Shake , Your Time Has Come , and Something I Expected To Be Different . He has also authored two books in collaboration with Matthew Nice Hat. Thanks. and Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty . Beckman is an editor at Wave Books.

Genres: Poetry

88 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1966

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

[Uroš Đurković · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reči – pečeni susam.
Zbirka – mravinjak.
Svaki stih – koš bez koske.

Religiozni rafali vratolomnih verolomstava. Poker bez blefiranja. (Klizanja kliženja.)
Serpentini izbeglištva značenja – još nerođene globalnice.

Poezija kao konac za zube, za smrt koju u bajkama zatvaraju u burad.

Pa ko živ, ko mrtav.

(Ovo je ono što prethodi pisanju. I to Ono niko drugi do Šalamuna ne može zabeležiti. Zato, sasvim grubo i pomalo ružno, svim epigonima treba viknuti – podalje!)

[Ana · Rating 3 out of 5]

i'll have whatever šalamun had k je tole pisou<3

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't like reviewing poetry. I don't know why I like some poetry and not other. I know that if I 'get it' and if I don't find what I 'get' to be trite or sounding like it comes from an angry fifteen year old's notebook then I am tempted to like it. Poker appealed to me because it's a pretty book, very nicely designed and the book is even nice to touch. I read part of it in the elevator brining it up from the basement at work and liked what I read, so I bought it. About half of the book I can feel that I 'get' and the other half I don't quite know what is going on in the poems. I'm dumb though when it comes to poetry. Melancholy, loneliness, wrestling with a God you might not believe in all of these old favorite topics pop up for me. The author is also from the same city in Slovenia as Slavoj Zizek, and there is something similar about the two, nothing really concrete but the same feeling of irreverence, kind of like there is something awful about the world, and it might not get any better but for some reason it is still possible to find the whole thing laugh out loud funny. I have no textual basis for this insight of mine, just a feeling I get when reading both this and from Zizek.

[Tijana]

[stric Gvido]
"neprestano je razmišljao o smrti
kupovao nam sladoled
i svakog dana iznova otkrivao
šta je bilo između
magnolije Brandenburg i Amerika
prije dva dana umro je Eliot
moj učitelj"

[ela · Rating 5 out of 5]

Njam :3

[Heli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bi si kr upala trdit, da je to ena najboljših slovenskih pesniških zbirk !!!!! (Ti si genij, Tomaž Šalamun. ;)

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

These poems have a nice cadence to them, but they are also random as hell.

[Penelope Winkle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stumbled upon this book of out of print translated Slovenian poetry originally published in 1966~ It’s unfortunate that it’s out of print because I really liked a lot of the poems. The writer also went to prison for one of his poems, that’s dedication and it’s sad it’s no longer appreciated by publishers.

[laila* · Rating 4 out of 5]

amazing writing i can tell tomaž has anxiety and we would be besties because of it…the part that goes god remembers how i tortured myself to succeed in making a tetrahedron from bread really hit home!!! idk why but who can tell much on this sunny yet suspiciously overcast january afternoon 🍸

[Nina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Slovar je super.

[Ursula · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

Mrk je moja najljubša Šalamunova, ampak ostale v zbirki pa mi niso bile ravno všeč.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Simultaneously more straightforward and looser than much of his later work (seems reasonable for a first book by a 22-year old experimentalist), i enjoyed it quite a bit. I admit that reading his stuff of late has gone a long way toward loosening words from out my own head. Strange the disconnect (at least for me) between the work you think you should be writing and the work you need to be writing.

[Paul Killebrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm reading this (especially the section called "Little Mushrooms") alongside Isaiah Berlin's concept of the ascetic, which he brings up in Two Concepts of Liberty and Roots of Romanticism--the person who, in order to escape the pain of want, teaches herself not to want. "The rule does not oppress me if I impose it on myself."

[Jeffrey Wright · Rating 5 out of 5]

Astonishing... a level of freedom (hidden within ad hoc structures) that is exilhirating at times and confounding at others. Only from Eastern Europe!

[Donald Armfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wasn't planning on reading this in one sitting but couldn't put it down. The only thing I did not like was the repeating lines.

Weird and enjoyable!

[Timothy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good stuff from a great man.

[Lavanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Нацртаћу крст
+
вијуге на мојој столици за љуљање
како тужно виси кошуља
кад ју је напустило тијело
мада је још кошуља
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и кофер и равнало Т
јесте ли већ видјели столицу
која трчи од купатила према кухињи
или у обратном правцу јер то није важно
и хистерично пита
шта ће бити с мојим посмртним животом
јесте ли већ видјели балконску ограду
која каже доста ми је
доста ми је
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и ја волим свој мали живот
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а када сте ишли глагољашком улицом
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тамо од оне године када су биле
посљедње ноћне регате и побиједио је Марио
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Несхватљиве су ствари у својој препредености
недокучиве бијесу живих
нерањиве у непрестаном отицању
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непомичне у чуђењу"

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