Moss & Silver

Slovenian avant-garde poet, art historian, and activist Detela’s subtle, enchanting second collection, originally published in 1983, is the first of his books to be translated into English. Wary of symbolism, poetic devices, “metaphorical kitsch,” and—most of all—poetic subjectivity, Detela’s often spare, haikuesque poems reveal a keen attunement to “the nests/ of future/ centuries,” a “vigilant love for/ alien consciousnesses,” and “a position for my actions/ without violence/ only with a body/ that is faithful, to its very/ last cell, to the thought/ that beings express/ themselves, not me.” In a sense, this sets Detela (and this translation) against the grain of both 21st-century American poetry and the Soviet realism that dominated the Yugoslavia of his youth. Instead, Detela pioneered an opening into what is now called ecopoetics, which looked to classical Japanese haiku and also directly addressed Western poets such as Dickinson, Wordsworth, Hölderlin, Shelley, and Trackl. Through his peer Iztok Osojnik’s introduction and translators Miller and Jamnik’s notes, this dual-language edition contextualizes Detela’s life and practice, adding a wealth of insight into the inspiration for each poem and characterizing the sincerity of Detela’s convictions: “The image of other bodies is no/ criterion for my humanity.” (Apr.)