Tomaž Šalamun
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Tomaž Šalamun
Born July 4, 1941
Zagreb, Independent State of Croatia
Died December 27, 2014 (aged 73)
Ljubljana, Slovenia
Occupation Poet
Language Slovene
Nationality Slovenian
Alma mater University of Ljubljana
Literary movement Neo-avant-garde
Notable awards Pushcart Prize, Prešeren Fund Award, European Prize for Poetry
Spouse Metka Krašovec

Tomaž Šalamun (July 4, 1941 – December 27, 2014) was a Slovenian poet who was a leading name of postwar neo-avant-garde poetry in Central Europe[1] and internationally acclaimed absurdist.[2] His books of Slovene poetry have been translated into twenty-one languages, with nine of his thirty-nine books of poetry published in English.[3] He had been called a poetic bridge between old European roots and America.[4] Šalamun was a member of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts. He lived in Ljubljana, Slovenia, and was married to the painter Metka Krašovec.[5]

Contents:
1 Life
2 Work
3 Poetry collections translated in English
4 International reception
4.1 America
4.2 Slovenia
5 Prizes
6 References
7 External links
7.1 Profiles
7.2 Work
7.3 Interviews and review
7.4 2011 Symposium
Life[edit]
As members of Slovene minority in Italy (1920–1947), Šalamun’s mother’s family joined thousands of Slovenes who left their homes because of the forced Italianization and moved from Italy to Yugoslavia, where he was born in 1941 in Zagreb. His father’s family came from Ptuj, where his grandfather had been a mayor.[6] After his family moved to Koper, the local high school teachers of French language and Slovene language made him interested in language. In 1960, he began to study art history and history at University of Ljubljana. His mother was an art historian,[7] his brother Andraž is an artist, while his two sisters are Jelka a biologist and Katarina a literary historian. Šalamun died on 27 December 2014 in Ljubljana.[8][9]

Work[edit]
In 1964, as editor of a literary magazine Perspektive he published his iconoclastic poem “Duma ’64” (Thought ’64), which was one of the reasons why Perspektive was banned and Šalamun was arrested by Titoist regime because one of its hard-liners, Ivan Maček Matija, recognized himself in the (dead) cat from the poem (the Slovene word maček means ‘cat’).[7] He spent five days in jail and came out something of a culture hero, but he refrained from including the poem in his first poetry book, which appeared in 1966 in a samizdat edition, full of absurdist irreverence, playfulness, and wild abandon.[6][10]

Poetry collections translated in English[edit]
Šalamun has had several collections of poetry published in English, including The Selected Poems of Tomaž Šalamun (Ecco Press, 1998); The Shepherd, the Hunter (Pedernal, 1992); The Four Questions of Melancholy (White Pine, 1997); Feast (Harcourt, 2000), Poker (Ugly Duckling Presse), Row! (Arc Publications, 2006), The Book for My Brother (Harcourt), Woods and Chalices (Harcourt, 2008, translated by Brian Henry), There’s the Hand and There’s the Arid Chair (Counterpath, 2009), and On the Tracks of Wild Game (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2012). American poets that influenced him include Frank O’Hara, John Ashbery and Walt Whitman.[1]

International reception[edit]
America[edit]
In July 1970, he was personally invited to exhibit his work at the MOMA.[11] Šalamun spent two years at the University of Iowa, including one year in the International Writing Program from 1971 to 1972, and lived for periods of time in the United States after that.[3] From 2005 to 2007 he taught at the University of Pittsburgh.

Slovenia[edit]
For a time, he served as Cultural Attaché to the Consulate General of Slovenia in New York. Literary critic Miklavž Komelj wrote:[12] “Šalamun’s inventiveness with language has, indeed, never been more dynamic than in his most recent books. But in this dynamism there is also a monotone quality, which the poet makes no attempt to hide. It is as if this ecstasy resulted from spinning endlessly in a circle, like the whirling dervishes—a religious order, incidentally, that was founded by the mystic Rumi, one of Šalamun’s favorite poets….It seems that the intensity of Šalamun’s language lies precisely in the endless insistence of its pulsation.”

Prizes[edit]
Šalamun won a Pushcart Prize, as well as Slovenia’s Prešeren Fund Award and Jenko Prize. Šalamun and his German translator, Fabjan Hafner, were awarded the European Prize for Poetry by the German city of Muenster. In 2004, he was the recipient of Romania’s Ovid Festival Prize.[13]

Svetina o Šalamunu: Bil je gejzir pesniške imaginacije in življenjske energije
Kot resnični planetarni pesnik je pisal o vreli intimi in najbolj bolečih nacionalnih temah, meni Meta Kušar.

Ob slovesu Tomaža Šalamuna je predsednik Društva slovenskih pisateljev Ivo Svetina za STA zapisal, da je bil Šalamun »gejzir pesniške imaginacije in življenjske energije«. Pesnica in esejistka Meta Kušar pa je menila, da je »pogled v vsako njegovo knjigo pogled v pesniško metafizično inteligenco in v neuničljivo semantično jedro«.
Svetina je v svojem spominskem zapisu poudaril, da je bil Šalamun »gejzir pesniške imaginacije in življenjske energije« vse od leta 1966, ko je v samozaložbi izdal svoj prvo pesniško zbirko Poker, pa do pred 14 dnevi, ko je izšla njegova zadnja zbirka z naslovom Dojenčki, in dodal: »Le kdo drug kot Šalamun bi pesniško zbirko naslovil Dojenčki!«
Šalamun je, tako Svetina, na tisoče, na desettisočev verzov napisal v skoraj pol stoletja in postavil slovensko poezijo na svetovni zemljevid. Dodal je, da se je s Pokrom zgodil absolutni prelom v tedanji slovenski poeziji in odmik od tradicionalnega razumevanja lirskega pesništva.
»Ko je konec 60. let minulega stoletja odhajal v ZDA, smo ga spraševali, kaj bo tam počel. ‘Pisal bom pesmi,’ nam je suvereno odgovoril in odšel ter začel pisati svoje prve ameriške pesmi, čeprav v slovenskem jeziku, saj je ugotovil, da bo le tako lahko stal in obstal na vrhu Parnasa, kajti če bi se odločil za angleščino, bi bil kar nenadoma eden od 20.000 obetavnih mladih ameriških pesnikov. Začeli so ga prevajati v angleščino, nemščino, francoščino, italijanščino, španščino in še v mnoge druge svetovne jezike. Bil je in ostaja najbolj prevajani slovenski pesnik,« je spomnil Svetina.
»Poezija je zato, ker človek ni bog, in to je, kar človek najtežje prenese,« je Svetina povzel enega od Šalamunovih znamenitih verzov in pojasnil: »Tako rekoč ugotovitev, ki ji ni mogoče ugovarjati, predvsem zato, ker jo je napisal Šalamun. Neizmerna moč iznajdevanja novih in novih besednih in stavčnih zvez, na tisoče prispodob in metafor pričajo, da je v Šalamunu živela, gorela tista ‘božja iskra’, ki je predpogoj, da človek preseže svojo povprečnost, da se zavihti ne le na rame velikanov, ki so živeli in ustvarjali pred njim, ampak na svoja lastna ramena in tako doseže tisto redko in hkrati tudi nevarno stanje, ki mu lahko rečemo tudi čezčloveško.«
»Tudi za Šalamuna velja, da je vse svoje življenje pisal eno samo pesem, zato je lahko napisal več kot 40 pesniških knjig. Živel je le od besede in v njih. Vse je spreminjal v poezijo; svoje intimno življenje kot tok svetovne zgodovine. Zato je bil in bo ostal eden največjih slovenskih in svetovnih pesnikov. Človek, ki je svojo človeško mero presegel s tem, da se je žrtvoval za Poezijo,« je sklenil Svetina.
Pesnica, esejistka in publicistka Meta Kušar je svoj zapis, posvečen Šalamunu, naslovila Svetli princ ne odhaja v temi, počaka na božič. »Pogled v vsako njegovo knjigo je pogled v pesniško metafizično inteligenco in v neuničljivo semantično jedro – od Pokra naprej napovedano: njegovo pleme. V nas, Slovence,« je poudarila.
Kušarjeva je Šalamunovo poezijo začela brati pri 27 letih, leta 1979: »V njegovih pesmih sem prepoznala slovenskega pesnika, ki se ni vdal ne dirigiranemu in hudo omejenemu intimizmu štirih pesnikov ne ludizmu, ki so ga lepili nanj, ampak je kot resnični planetarni pesnik pisal o vreli intimi in najbolj bolečih nacionalnih temah – o spravi, ki se je še danes le redki znajo dotikati in spodbujati; nikakor ne politiki in tudi pesniki ne.«
»Moje razpoznavanje znamenj se je dogajalo v času, ko se še nihče ni mogel okužiti z mednarodno šalamunsko konjunkturo in v oazi akademske svobode mentorja prof. Borisa Paternuja, ki ga ni motilo, da pesnika rešujem iz ječe ekstravertiranega modernizma; to je ludizma in reizma,«se je spominjala Kušarjeva.
Izrazila pa je bojazen, »da po skoraj pol stoletja pri nas njegovo delo predvsem prenašamo, to je tiskamo, premalo beremo in še manj globinsko dojamemo. Ker so vsebine njegove poezije arhetipske, mora tako široka biti tudi recepcija – vse drugo je rezultat osiromašene domišljije in duhovne zaostalosti. Šalamun je pesnik individuacije in spodbujevalec nacionalnih intrapsihičnih dogajanj, brez katerih ne bomo vzdržali, torej sprejeli, človečnosti,« je sklenila Kušarjeva.