The large group of heterogeneous poetics and enormous opuses is chronologically divided into seven units: 1. "Povojna lirika med revolucionarnim zanosom in osebno stisko (1950-1953)" (Post-WW II ...lyric poetry, from revolutionary excess to personal anxiety, distress 1950-53) covers sixteen poets (including Karel Vladimir Truhlar's first collection of 1958); 2. "V navzkrizju pomenskih struktur (1953-1960)" (At the crossroads of semantic structures" 1953-60) treats twelve poets (including Makarovic's first collection of 1964); 3. In "Polifonija estetskih in idejnih pesniskih izrazov in oblik (1960-1966)" (A polyphony of aesthetic and intellectual poetic expression and forms 1960-66), three of the fourteen poets' first collections came out in 1968-69 (Vogel, Kravos, and Kokot), and one each in 1974 (Pregarc) and 1978 (Janus); 4. "Vprasanje lingvizma, ludizma, karnizma (1966-75)" (The problem of linguism, ludism, and carnalism 1966-75) focuses on six poets; 5. "Sedemdeseta leta (1970-1977)" (The 1970s 1970-77) considers two poets' (Ivan Volaric-Feo and Matjaz Hanzek) concrete poetry, and seven others as relates to "the end of modernism or the beginning of postmodernism"; 6. "Leta 1977-1980" (The years 1977-80) treats nine poets as "new formalism and the advent of postmodernism," although Vincetic, Oswald, Jurij Kovic, Alojz Ihan, Maja Vidmar, and Haderlap published their first collections only in the mid-1980s; 7. "Postmodernizem se uveljavi (1985-)" (The prevalence of postmodernism 1985-) contains four of the youngest poets, although early on Ales Steger and Hudolin sharpen the images of dark modernism. Since contemporary poets will not soon be published in the most elite editions of the classics, Zbrana dela slovenskih pesnikov in pisateljev (The collected works of Slovene poets and prose writers)-Truhlar, Kocbek, and Joze Udovic have been exceptions- and since the earliest collections haven't been for sale for a long time, the enterprising publishing house Studentska zalozba undertook the collected poems of the classics of modernism. They began with those without whom contemporary poetry as it is would be inconceivable: Strnisa (Zbrane pesmi, 2007), Zajc (V belo, 2008), Kovic (Vse poti so, 2009), Salamun (Kdaj, 2010), Niko Grafenauer (Diham, da ne zaide zrak, 2010), and Jesih (Zbrane zbirke, 2012). The poet and essayist Ales Steger does the lion's share of editorial work and writing commentaries. He provided a sophisticated colloquy on Strnisa (convincingly establishing the meaning of the poet's cosmology, which departs in universal consciousness from anthropocentric rationalism), Zajc (whom he read from the standpoint of a negative theology, a horizon of the absolute, Derridaean polyphonic utterances, the shining of mystical light in darkness, and a shamanic calling), and the Sphinx-like, reticent, and serious Grafenauer (from the perspective of Rilke, Mallarmé, Celan, and the poet's autopoetic essays on inexpressible being, the ineffability of the absolute, his palimpsest and labyrinthine texture). In portraying Kovic, B. A. Novak underlined the symbolic techniques and loyalty to traditional verse and stanza forms in his poetic language, which functions naturally and in harmony with a general return to the tradition of pronounced skepticism towards apologies for free verse. A virtue of the commentaries are the ways they summarize and advance knowledge, reveal unnoticed dimensions by introducing new comparisons, and reset evaluative emphases. The largest book is on Tomaz Salamun. The selection is taken from forty collections, early texts not included in the first collection, and recent poems. A unique feature is the six (re-issued) recordings of Salamun's poetry, three by Slovene and three by foreign speakers. Ivo Svetnina recollects the atmosphere surrounding the appearance of the poems in the periodical Nasi razgledi and notes the subversive effect of the collection Poker, employing Marija Pirjevec's maxim of the end of the 'Preseren structure': "Salamun... jolted the sleepy and rigid Slovene poesis, which transformed all the non-occurring and non-existent into occurring and existing" (Svetina 2010: 912). Taras Kermauner questions the poet's faith (metaphysics with a Logos), nihilism (a non-essential code of substitutable signs), and personal identity as regards the paradoxes in the Maske collection. In the view of Salamun's coeval, the art historian Tomaz Brejc, in the second edition of Poker (1989), the poet features elegantly dresses the shocking, employs mobility, speed, erudition, word purification, and metonymy; conveys the immediacy of life and speech; and juxtaposes imaginary and real freedom, which is a model for contemporary human survival. The external views are especially interesting-the testimony of translators, critics, and poets. The American poet Joshua Beckman, with no knowledge of Slovene, felt fortunate to enter the other's place and then, instead of witnessing history experienced the art of presence, "and presence is, in and of itself, the greatest affirmation of life" (Beckman 2010: 1970). The Macedonian poet Katica K?julavkova summarizes the poetic features with the formulation: "evincing a strong will and power of presence in the poet's world/picture of the world here and now" (K?julavkova 2010: 978). She explains mobility as the drive to creative difference, which can easily be situated in international systems of poetic values and function in them as recognizable identity with a strong individual stamp. The American critic Kevin Hart expresses a view different from the Slovenes'. In the poems of Praznik (Feast) and Balada za Metko Krasevec he sees variety, childlike enjoyment, poetic expansion of experience, a journey of discovery and expectation of the unforeseen, and a quest for discoveries that disorient our experiences.
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