Poker (2nd Edition)
Poker (2nd Edition)
$15.00
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About the Book
Poker is the first of more than two dozen books of poetry by Tomaž Šalamun, the internationally renowned Slovenian post-war poet. Shortly after Šalamun was born in Zagreb, Croatia, his family fled from the rising pro-Nazi Ustaša party to Koper, Slovenia, near Trieste. Before turning to poetry, Šalamun had studied art history, worked as a curator, and was a member of the conceptual and performance art group OHO. Having had some tangles with the authorities as editor of the chief Slovenian cultural journal, Šalamun published Poker in 1966 in samizdat. It was a small, underground, self-published edition, yet, its playful, anti-authoritarian, postmodern approach instantly became influential for an entire generation of poets in Slovenia and the rest of Yugoslavia.
In his introduction to Poker, Matthew Rohrer writes that Šalamun is “an even cattier Frank O’Hara”: “and I turn over / hide behind a barricade / and pull out my COLT / aucun sens public / is this art engaged / there’s no damned sport left anywhere / no tramway to Bronowice / no Brandenburg or America” (“Flor Ars Hippocratica”). In Poker, the then 25-year-old poet imagines his own future as an ageing avant-gardist embracing failure: “at the end the journalists ask me / why did you lose the game / there are raspberries / raspberries / I say.” (“There Are Raspberries”). However, Poker was a great success in that it marked out a new stylistic territory which Šalamun would explore and expand over the course of nearly 50 years of writing, developing a voice that continues to inspire new generations of poets around the world.
A finalist for the PEN America Poetry in Translation Award, Poker was translated by Joshua Beckman and the author. The second edition includes a new introduction by Matthew Rohrer.
EEPS #3 (1st edition) and #20 (2nd edition).
To buy a letterpress printed broadside of the poem “What Is Abomination” alongside a copy of Poker, select the option “Poker + What Is Abomination Broadside” from the dropdown menu in Shopify. To purchase just a copy of the broadside, click here.
Author
Tomaž Šalamun
Born in Zagreb in 1941, Tomaž Šalamun attracted critical notice with his first collection, Poker, which was published when he was only twenty-five. His books have been translated into nineteen languages. He has received many honors and awards including the Prešeren Prize, the Jenko Prize, and a Pushcart Prize. Šalamun passed away in late 2014.
Translator
Joshua Beckman
Joshua Beckman is a poet, translator and editor. His recent books include The Inside of an Apple (Wave Books, 2013) and Supplication: Selected Poems of John Wieners, co-edited with CAConrad and Robert Dewhurst (Wave Books, 2015).
Contributor
Matthew Rohrer
Matthew Rohrer is the author of several books, including Surrounded By Friends, (Wave Books, 2015) and A Plate of Chicken (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2009). The Others, a novel in verse, is forthcoming from Wave Books in 2017. A Green Light (Verse Press, 2004) was shortlisted for the Griffin International Poetry Prize. He lives in Brooklyn, New York and teaches in the creative writing program at NYU.
Praise
In the News
Links
Other UDP titles from Tomaž Šalamun here
Tomaž Šalamun on Poetry Foundation
Justice by Tomaž Šalamun on Black Ocean
Excerpt
let’s say the dust
where should it fall
toward down or toward sideways
or should it be the roots
all these things God solves real slow
sometimes he says ARCHAIC
but nobody budges
nobody wakes up
in fact no one wakes up
sometimes he says we killed carriers of flowers
and buys bright paper
I bought bright paper he says
we killed carriers of flowers…
From “Grace”