Tomaz Salamun (1941–2014)
Author of The Four Questions of Melancholy: New and Selected Poems
About the Author
Tomaz Salamun was born on July 4, 1941 in Yugoslavia. He studied art history at the University of Ljubljana. He edited the literary magazine Perspektive and was briefly jailed on political charges. His first collection of poetry, Poker, was published in 1966. During his lifetime, he wrote more than show more 40 collections of poetry in Slovenian and English including The Four Questions of Melancholy, Feast, The Book for My Brother, Woods and Chalices, and On the Tracks of Wild Game. He won the Jenko Prize, Slovenia's Preseren and Mladost Prizes, and a Pushcart Prize. He died on December 27, 2014 at the age of 73. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: M. Biedrzycki
Works by Tomaz Salamun
Il Ragazzo e il cervo 3 copies
Acquedotto 3 copies
Glagoli Sonca 2 copies
Snow 1 copy
Kdaj 1 copy
Arena 1 copy
Sneg 1 copy
Glas 1 copy
Analogije svjetlosti 1 copy
Amerika 1 copy
Hiša Markova 1 copy
Smerilliana 2004 1 copy
Associated Works
Onthebus No. 8 and 9 — Contributor — 6 copies
Mississippi Review: MR45 — Contributor — 4 copies
Hills, number one — Contributor — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Šalamun, Tomaž
- Birthdate
- 1941-07-04
- Date of death
- 2014-12-27
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- Slovenia
- Birthplace
- Zagreb, Croatia
- Place of death
- Ljubljana, Slowenien
- Places of residence
- Koper, Slovenia
Iowa, USA
New York, New York, USA - Education
- University of Ljubljana
University of Iowa - Occupations
- Poet
- Awards and honors
- Ovid Prize (2004)
Members
Reviews
Tomaz Salamum's poetry seems to show up just about everywhere in the poetry journal world. So I thought it was about time to read one of his books. On my second, closer reading. I enjoy the odd leaps, the quirky juxtaposition of surreal and real. All the while, I mostly haven't a clue what he's on about.
While I know I know not another polish poem, Salamun seems to have pulled the rug out and beat it and smelled the cat shit and it doesn't have to be so you know so tragic and its bad enough to be a person I guess or at least that's what he'd have us know.
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Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 51
- Also by
- 6
- Members
- 379
- Popularity
- #63,709
- Rating
- 3.8
- Reviews
- 3
- ISBNs
- 60
- Languages
- 9
- Favorited
- 3
and the ziggurat is designed also on the necklace worn by the
peacock
Nobody can invent
the new atomic weight of love
Soy Realidad by Tomaž Šalamun is his twenty-first and latest collection of poetry. Soy Realidad (translated: I am reality) was first published in 1985. Šalamun was born in 1941 in Zagreb, Yugoslavia. He has taught at the Universities of Pittsburgh, Richmond, and Texas and a Fulbright Fellow at Columbia.
Usually in poetry collections I will find a handful of poems or lines that really hit me just right. Most collections I have read contain good and very good poems, and in that mix are a very few simply amazing poems; the ones you read and not only know what the poet is saying and feeling, but have also lived those same experiences. There is a bit of magic in that connection with the poet. Šalamun’s collection is different from most I have read. Instead of notes on a few poems and several highlighted lines, my copy of Soy Realidad is highlighted and marginal notes fill all the available space. It more closely resembles an overamped college freshman’s textbook than my normal minimalistic notes.
...And
if I have to listen again to these
petit bourgeois problems of the Niceean
councils and witness the liquidations
of our best tested guerilla cadre,
you, colts, will again go back,
route march to darkness, In this cantina
while others might stab you with knives,
I will calmly place small change
por mi copa de alma blanca
~ Cantina in Queretaro
“Dangerous Thoughts” brings a simple thought challenge of a pious man who mentally delves into the world of fleshly pleasures knowing he can pull himself back to his ascetic spirit as before. How many other things can this apply to life. Immediate thoughts turned to drug use and other addictions that people assume that they are too smart to become addicted. I can stop at any time because I am stronger and smarter, than the rest.
“To Deaf Brothers” offers, in part :
I refuse to be free in every place
to then fall back in empty dry
blackness only in my native country.
I’m not a cynic, I’m a poet, a prophet
With my life I go there where I am.
I won’t be strangled by your nets,
your Saint-Beuvish mumblings are
criteria for no one.
Poetry can compress detailed thoughts and ideas in a few simple words. Sometimes a single line can provoke imagery that would take paragraphs to explain. One such line caught my attention in “Cantina in Queretaro”:
the cataracts of the underworld.
Thoughts ranged from eyes glazed over in death, to crossing the River Styx, to the blind eye we turn to the unpleasant things. The illusion created is far greater than the number of words used.
Later in the collection Šalamun switches to a freer, paragraph format. In “The Bird Dove” reference to the stars and a Buddha’s lumberjacks reminded me of Kerouac’s Dharma Bums. Perhaps that is what Šalamun does best, he finds intersections. He creates paths that cross our paths and the reader will pause at those intersections and recall and reflect on a memory. Many times that memory is so detailed by Šalamun it feels like they are shared memories of a single event. That unique spark of poetic magic, I mentioned at the top of the page, that we find in our favorite poems thrives in Šalamun’s Soy Realidad . This is a collection you will want to carry around with you. Granted, most of us don’t carry a book in our pocket anymore, but get the e-book, put it in your phone, read when every you have a moment or two, select a poem at random. You will not regret it. An unbelievable collection
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