The Golden Boat

There are very few major European poets of the early twentieth century not already known to English-language audiences, but Srečko Kosovel is one. Often called the Slovene Rimbaud (he died at twenty-two, leaving almost 1,000 poems), the full range and significance of his poetry has been revealed only slowly even to Slovenians themselves, and yet he is a major voice of Central European modernism, whose work explores powerfully and incisively the problems of individual identity and allegiance in the face of the new century with its strong call, to one living through the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, to international socialism.

Kosovel’s poetry reflects at once the turmoil of the Balkans after the Great War and, at exactly the same time as Ungaretti, Joyce and Rilke were experiencing it, so deep a love of and connection to his native Karst region thet he turns it into aone of the most remarkable symbolic landscapes of twentieth century poetry.

Although certain limited English selections of his work have appeared in the past, this edition, superbly translated by the poets Bert Pribac (Slovenia) and David Brooks (Australia), is the largest and most comprehensive selection to have appeared in any language other than his own.

Srečko Kosovel (1904-1926) was born in Sežana, spent his childhood in the neighbouring village of Tomei, and was educated in Ljubljana. Often called the Slovenian Rimbaud, he is thought to have written over one thousand poems before his early death, although during his lifetime he published less than forty. Renowned initially for his impressionist lyrics of the Karst region above Trieste, the remarkable modernist component of his work began to be realised only forty years after his death.

Table of contents

Srecko Kosovel: Life and Poetry
Part I The Golden Boat
Ballad
October
A Premonition
Karst Village
Autumn
Dinner
Last Night
Karst Autumn
A Trip
August
Pines
Evening by the Red Sand Dune
At a Provincial Station
All These Words
Night
I Saw the Pines Grow
Cyclamens
On the Park Bench
I Remember
My Mother Waits
In the Coffee Bar
New Year Sonnet
Village Behind the Pines
The Sun, Nada
Just One Dread
Death Sonnet
Nocturne
My Poem
The Ninth Country
This Horrible Time
On a Grey Morning
Melancholy of Hunger
The Golden Boat
Ecstasy of Death
A Sketch at the Concert
As If they were Landscapes
Astral Erotics
The Gathering
People with a Wound
I Am
There is No Death
The White House
I Am Not Alone
The Sail
Part II Integrals
Rhymes
Autumn Quiet
Kons: The Cat
Evacuation of Spirit
Kons: ABC
Prostituted Culture
The Mystic Light of Theory
1
My Black Inkpot
Kons. 5
Integrals
Above the Madhouse
Object Without Soul
The Laugh of King Dada
A Heart in Alcohol
Poem No. X
The Spherical Mirror
Kons
Kons: XY
Kludsky Circus, Seat 461
Poem No. 1
Conversation at Twilight
Kons: 4
Grey
Lord Radic
Hey, Hey
Near Midnight
Kons. Kons. Kons.
Delirium
Cops
At the Station
The Longhaired Romantic
A Sign Above the Town
KONS
Ljubljana is Sleeping
Herrings
Black Walls
Our Eyes
Europe is Dying
A Reflection from the Attic
Impression
A Bottle in a Corner
Poem
Kons
The Devil, You’d Say
The Red Rocket
The Singing Arc Lamp
A Face at the Window
A Streetlamp
Autumn
In Green India
Kaleidoscope
A Suicide in Front of a Mirror
Sketch
Blue Horses
Autumn Landscape
Part III
When Spring Arrives
A Cold Thought
Bianca
Green Parrot
Autumn Day
In My Room
Moon over the City
A Ship Departing
Negative Total
Italian Culture
3
The Syphilitic Captain
A Soft Evening
Kons: X
The Arch of Triumph
Kons: M
Society is Collapsing
The Budget
Requiem
Notes