Hippodrome - (Eastern European Poets) by Miklavz Komelj (Paperback)

About the Book

Komelj eschews the intrigues of the contemporary poetry world for a deep, personal engagement with his culture's language and art.

Book Synopsis

Despite the natural divides between English and Slovene, throughout Hippodrome there are echoes of a familiar American modernism in Miklavz Komelj's polyglot, esoteric references, and in his sense of himself as embedded in an international tradition. Komelj is a bit of a chimera: his book includes imagistic lyrics, pastiches of quotes, persona poems, political polemics, and a reasonably faithful translation of Seneca. He references Futurist operas, NATO military action, personal friends, and literary and artistic heroes. His view is wide and deep, but throughout this book, and despite all these shifts in attention and approach, he builds a stable, unique vision.

About the Author

Miklavz Komelj: Hippodrome was Komelj's fourth book of poems in Slovene. He published his first, Luc delfina, when he was only seventeen. He has published seven collections of poems to date, and his work has been anthologized regularly.

Dan Rosenberg: His first book, The Crushing Organ, won the 2011 American Poetry Journal Book Prize. His poems have appeared recently or are forthcoming in several journals, including Pleiades, American Letters & Commentary, Subtropics, and Gulf Coast.

Boris Gregoric: He has published six books of short fiction and writes regularly for the Croatian national radio. He has won several literary awards, including the prestigious Goran Yugoslav national award for young poets in 1988.