Barren harvest: Selected Poems of Dane Zajc
translated by Erica Johnson Debeljak
Edited and with an introduction by Ales Debeljak

$14.00 96 pages ISBN 1-893996-67-0
December -- sample [PDF]

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Dane Zajc (born 1929) is the greatest living Slovenian
poet which is saying a lot in a nation of two million
that emerged out of a disintegrated Yugoslavia and is
full of poets and writers, guardians of spirit and
national consciousness. Zajc, a member of Slovenian
Academy of Arts and Sciences and a laureate of many
distinguished literary awards, has seen a publication
of his work in several European languages. Barren
Harvest is, however, the first comprehensive volume to
appear in English translation, presenting the entire
creative arch of Zajc's vision from early poems to his
mature work. Zajc, a founding father of post-WWII
modernism and a former inmate of communist jails, was
inspired by a political resistance to the dictatorial
regime that gave his work an urgent character and by
aesthetics of existentialism that privileged a raw,
unmediated and sensuously immediate experience. His
poems speak of an profound solitude that is the
destiny of contemporary man, using the vocabulary of
natural world and bodily sensations to illuminate
both, the mortal and lethal aspects of human
condition. This is poetry with of uncompromising
seriousness, propelling the reader into a vertigo of
sinister and evil world which may be redeemed through
the fleeting moments of erotically charged unity with
the cosmic forces and the woman's body. Disturbing,
incantatory, and powerfull, these lyrical visions are
as vital as they are inspiring.

" 'And instead of a word/a lump of ashes rolls
down/your blackened throat' says Dane Zajc, by general
consent the greatest living Slovenian poet. Enough is
a line or two of his apophatic power, and you are
there for good. In his landscape, his voice, his
destiny, his beauty. He is a prophet, a seducer, and a
sage. O, you'll be defined, burned, and relieved,
reader. You won't forget him."
-Tomaz Salamun - Four Questions of Melancholy


Afterwards Slovenian Writing 1945-1995

Edited by Andrew Zawacki

An instructive essay by poet and literary-social critic Ales Debeljak opens this introductionn to the rich post-World War II literary tradition in Slovenia. Writers include Edvard Kocbek, whom Charles Simic called one of the truest witnesses of our new dark ages and Tomaz Salamun, who is, according to the New York Times, a major Central European poet; Drago Jancar and Berta Bojetu-Boeta. Also included is a riveting piece by Ivo Standeker, a journalist killed by a Serbian sniper in Sarajevo in 1992.

Literature & Essay Cultural Studies Terra Incognita Series 4
5.5 x 8.5 242 pages Trade Paper $17.00 1-877727-97-0

Leaving Egypt
Poems by Gene Zeiger

“Zeiger’s poems, so earthy and moist with family, love, and everyday things and so gently passionate about finding your own territory, and so full of memory, both tragic and unchanging-these strong and delicate poems offer a way home for us all.”-Thomas Moore

ISBN 1-877727-50-4 · 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 · 80 pages · $12.00 paper

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