Gregor Strniša

There comes a man of iron wrought,
and he is bringing the rock-salt,
mineral water, a loaf of lead,
and the telescope to stars themselves.

He’ll put you in a tower of iron made
and lock up three iron gates,
then round the world he’ll go away,
he’ll throw the keys into three lakes.

You will ascend the tower’s top,
you will look through the telescope.
You will discover there one night
on a planet a pair of eyes.

(Lullaby 1, translated by Gregor Strniša)

The Ballad of the World
An Orangutan
I
Is solitude his poppy seed?
He, hating troops, his counsel keeps.
Draws a magic ring round trees,
where his glowing eye can reach.

Where his voice rings—in those parts
no blue man will cross his path,
nor the other forest wight,
copper-coloured, cross the line.

He has conquered fear of death.
In his arms and eyes he has
greatest strength and deepest peace:
he’s a wood god, not a beast.

Space is probably Gregor Strniša’s most elaborate concept,
which he himself speaks about at the beginning of his
essay; that it is not a chronological anthological review
and summary of his poetry, but rather a newly compiled thematic
selection in terms of principle and the principles of the topic
itself. Knowing Strniša’s poetry and frame of mind, it is not
just about the poetic work, but about the poet’s comprehensive
philosophy and attitude towards the world/poem/space. The
book is divided into three sections, and at the beginning there
is The Lullaby, translated by the poet himself, which would
probably belong more at the end of the book, if the poems were
arranged by more “classical” principles; but precisely in this lies
the charm of the current classification—that Strniša focuses
on the essence of his poetic world, his fable, spells and also his
formal poetic system, which is based on assonances and adds
mysticism/cosmic dimensions to his poems. In this wolume,
there are poems and cycles from his numerous poetry collections,
with an effective conclusion in the form of a two-part
poem Beyond, where “space” appears as a title for the second
time (the first time as a poem with this title in the second
section). Which collections the individual poems originally
appear in should be left up to the curious reader who takes the
time to look through the bibliography, while connoisseurs of
Strniša’s poetry will have no problems identifying individual
poems. From the mythological and cosmic collections Odisej
and Zvezde in the 1960s to books-poemas such as Škarje, Oko
and Jajce in the 1970s, which deal with time and man in it, Strniša’s
poetry seems to be thematically the most well-rounded
in contemporary Slovenian poetry. The present book, with its
minimalist illustrations, which act as if they, like poems, have
traveled through time and space, thereby further underlining
the modern archaicness or archaic modernity of Strniša’s poetry,
presents the reader with a new, modern context of poetry,
which as such naturally can not expire, but it can testify. Again
and again.