Justice

"Not a minute of my life/ was lost./ Tanks were there/ and altars in paper boxes./ White grass burned in white flames/ and I was on cocaine," writes %C5%A0alamun (1914%E2%80%932014) to open this posthumous collection of previously untranslated poems from across his long career. Hallucinatory, hilarious, disturbing, and politically and socially volatile, the work of %C5%A0alamun (On the Tracks of Wild Game) long held a prominent place in the Eastern European avant-garde. The book contains a number of gems, and Taren's precise renditions capture %C5%A0alamun's signature style while diverging just enough from previous translators to keep the work surprising. The downfall of such a long book (perhaps related to it being posthumous) is that some of the poems simply feel unfinished. %C5%A0alamun's work operates under a dizzying array of cultural references, sharp juxtapositions of nonsense, and mordant humor%E2%80%94boundaries that are difficult to navigate and require a level of care and emotional intelligence that is lacking in some of the fragment-like, untitled works. That doesn't diminish the unwieldy power and scene-rifting surprises of %C5%A0alamun's best poems, which are thankfully abundant here. Fans will undoubtedly want to grab this, and those new to %C5%A0alamun will find it a relatively diverse and well-rounded introduction to his work. (Jan.)