Solitude

ABOUT THE BOOK

The first translation of my poems into any foreign language. The chapbook included a selection of poems from my first poetry collection šahovnice ur / Chessdesks of Hours. I am still indebted to the poet and professor at Chattanooga Richard Jackson to make it happen, opening a very important door for me (prior to Internet)!

SAMPLE TEXT

ALEŠ ŠTEGER : INVITATION TO TEA

Then you said quietly: I open my breast to you
Like water opens her breast to tea.
Right next to us, on heavy chairs,
The flowers were eating winter thorns, hoping

To turn into roses. We watched them
Wrapped in thin glass, hidden from themselves,
And pulled the skin over ourselves. And you said:
Your breast is ash. I open flowers to you

Like water opens her flowers to tea;
Untwining me, you ran through me
Into the street where, leaving through the grey snow,
From the diminishing cup of your fingers pours the day.

Translated from the Slovene by Uroš Mozetič