Moss & Silver

by Jure Detela, Raymond Miller (Translation), Tatjana Jamnik (Translation)

Poetry. Translated from the Slovene by Raymond Miller with Tatjana Jamnik. Jure Detela--poet, activist, and mystic--was a key figure in the vibrant avant-garde movement that defined Slovenian culture in the 1980s. The forty-four poems of MOSS & SILVER anticipate the radical environmentalism and animal rights activism of the 21st century while engaging in a passionate dialogue with wide array of poets from William Wordsworth to Kobayashi Issa. Although he often railed against the "defenders of Slovene [traditional poetic] beauty" and "the tyranny of metaphor," Detela was a meticulous craftsman who employed a stunning variety of rhythms and stanzaic forms.

MOSS & SILVER ( Mah in srebro ), originally published in 1983 by Obzorja (Maribor), is the first book of Jure Detela's poems to appear in English. This bilingual edition has been translated by Raymond Miller with Tatjana Jamnik, and includes an introduction by Slovenian poet and critic Iztok Osojnik and a translator's afterword by Raymond Miller.

Cover artwork by Mina Fina. Cover letterpressed at UDP.

Genres: Poetry

144 pages, Paperback

Published May 1, 2018

Reviews

[Greg Bem · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first introduction to Detela by way of Raymond Miller's translation was powerful and delightful. The work itself feels slightly underwhelming when thinking about the contemporaries and predecessors in Eastern, Central, and Western Europe that take up familiarity with style and theme; however, the work is still uniquely Slovene and uniquely Detela, and worth investigating further with its recent re-emergence.

[Joe Milazzo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Often brittle yet classically sculpted verses that elevate misanthropy to the status of a religion. I.e., secretly radical stuff. Ultimately, the book is about lines rather than poems. Not necessarily a bad thing, but something to know before exposing yourself to its pages.

[Frank Karioris · Rating 4 out of 5]

First Slovene literature for my visit to Ljubljana.