Tone Škrjanec

A very special voice in Slovene poetry, Tone Škrjanec has, from the start, also walked a solitary path. Indeed, we could say he is an author from the periphery, and it is precisely for this reason that Škrjanec has gained an eminent appellation, namely, as someone who stands for authentic individualism. His poems have changed little in their basic position over the years, and many a keen reader has claimed that he is a poet who is always writing one and the same poem. The collection Skin is fully and wholly integrated into his oeuvre, with its free verse, slow, reflective rhythms, collage technique, sensitivity to the tiniest beings and details, and its overtly sensual language; it is replete with every shade of colour, ranging from the warmest to the extremely cold, but, like silver, it is no less beautiful for that – and beauty remains an essential category for Škrjanec’s poetry. This is a language that is full not only of colours but also of smells, sounds and the material: the world enters Škrjanec’s poetry in all its liveliness and vividness. Skin was originally published in 2006 and has been celebrated by critics and a wide circle of readers alike as the finest of poetry. It brought Škrjanec to an extremely large circle of readers that, rather than narrowing, continues to expand. Indeed many of his poems from Skin have been anthologized.

Additional sample translation of a short poetry selection in Portuguese 

Additional sample translation of a short poetry selection in English