Ales Debeljak. Smugglers.
Pantovic, Bojana Stojanovic
Ales Debeljak. Smugglers. Brian Henry, tr. Rochester, New York. BOA
Editions. 2015. 108 pages.
Slovenian poet Ales Debeljak's new bilingual volume, Smugglers,
contains five cycles and four nonrhymed quatrains. Each of the
individual poems pulses with emotional intensity inspired by various
streets and squares of the poets hometown of Ljubljana--its bars,
cinemas, or cemeteries--with dedications to close friends and writers
from the former Yugoslavia.
In the map of Smugglers, intertextual references function as
explicit quotes. The unique tone of the collection approaches prose
diction, with lightning-like associative leaps characteristic of
Debeljak's use of poetic images. These quotes and dedications
appear as markers with which the reader gets back to an old private or
political story of the urban chronicle of Ljubljana or any other city.
The lyrical voice intuitively summons it as a witness of the moments
that link the poet's childhood, adolescence, and adulthood to the
present era: "I was there; if you want, / call it a place of
private memory, if you want, the end of the road." Nostalgia for a
former life thus turns into nostalgia for all such persons, places, and
situations that shaped the poet's personal identity but also the
anguish and trauma over a forever-changed people in the region.
More than in some previous collections, Debeljak's lyrical
voice is tinged with the experience of death, both that of close friends
(fellow writers Bostjan Seliskar and Igor Zabel) and the death of
ex-Yugoslav culture as the symbolic home of past generations, including
that of the poet. Images of recollection are transformed into the
contours of ghosts and phantoms, sometimes nameless: "I seek the
dead and musty corridors" or "I read dead men to
myself."
In this regard, a number of the poems are also provided with the
inserted quotes, which will be challenging for outsiders to identify.
These are the names of famous movies, books, or characteristics of the
former Yugoslavia, which are also reflected in the global meaning of the
text: for example, The Feather Collectors is the name of a famous film
by Aleksandar Petrovic on the life of the Romani that received the Palme
d'Or.
Although at first glance it may not seem so, this is perhaps one of
Debeljak's most intimate and exciting collections. The picturesque
architecture of Ljubljana evokes the timeless beauty of baroque art and
the poets attachment to it. At the same time, in the dark deserted
interiors reside the ghosts of the past, a past that is unfortunately
more powerful than the future.
Bojana Stojanovic Pantovic
University of Novi Sad
