Mila Haugová

37/2020. This isn't my favourite type of poetry, and that was probably exacerbated by some of the decisions the translators say they made. These included removing dates and dedications, then reordering the poems, so it's more difficult for a reader to sense connections within Haugova's body of work (even though there's only one decade represented here). The translators claim they ordered the poems by theme but this bizarrely assumes these fragmentary allusive conundrums will read the same way to me and every other individual reader as they do to the translators (which seems narcissistically egotistical of them, frankly). I enjoyed the sequence titled Ancient, but I'm unlikely to reread this book.

Read as part of my desultory attempt to read my way around the European Union.

Reading: Slovakia.

Read: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden.

Remaining unread countries: Croatia, Republic of Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta, Slovenia.… (more)