Tomaž

and Joshua Beckman 

• Description
• Reviews

• Tomaž is an extended poem assembled by Joshua Beckman from his recorded conversations with one of the foundational figures of the Eastern European avant-garde, Tomaž Šalamun. This book includes photographs and translated original poems throughout, some of which are presented for the first time in English, as it covers the first forty years of Šalamun’s life in his own words.

• Guided by the intuitive hand of longtime translator Joshua Beckman, this delicate dance of denial and privilege across the stages of Yugoslav communism and American capitalism under the shadow of fascism and WWII spins a mythopoesis of encounters with friends, lovers, and guides in art.…In contemporary poetry, Šalamun's legacy endures like a watermark, guiding poets and poetry like a daytime moon.
  Ana Božičević, NPR
  
  Tomaž offers an inspiring model for becoming a poet, with an insouciance that makes congenial a serious dedication to poetry and with the grace to thrive in a now-lost world of avant-garde bohemias.
  David Woo, Harriet Books (Poetry Foundation)