Slovenian poet Salamun (The Book for My Brother) has become an influence, and a mentor, for plenty of young American poets. One reason lies in Salamun's postmodern mix of giddy and global with the earthy retrospect he takes from his homeland. Salamun . . . makes his new collection a whirlwind tour of sites and moods, naming locales from Persia to the Grajena River to the Pacific coast and riffing on the work of other poets from Walt Whitman to Mark Levine. . . . — Publishers Weekly
Praise for Salamun's The Ballad of Metka Krasovek:
Tomaz Salamun, whose work has been translated by many fine American poets, including Anselm Hollo, is quite dazzling. The long poem that opens this collection is sheer condensed delight, cross-hatched with near-familiar American sound and metaphorically rich Slovenian. Salamun is one of ours, that is to say, a four-star trans-cultural carrier!
— Andrei Codrescu
Aside from being wonderful poetry – the translations by University of Washington Slavic and East European studies librarian Michael Biggins have tremendous energy and ease – the book gives immediate and fascinating insight (and hindsight) into the paradoxes of the cold war writer's life in the East.
— Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Salamun's poetry is not so much a response to particular experiences, no matter how socially transgressive they may be, but is experience itself.
— Kevin Hart, Verse
Quiet yet also strangely exuberant, Salamun's lyrics are invigorated with the dissonance of outburst and metaphysical reflection, fusing public utterance and interior meditation in a way rarely seen in a poetic culture so consumed by a now-hackneyed "post-Postmodernism."
— Ethan Paquin, Boston Review
Like Dostoevsky, for whom consciousness was disease and salvation, Salamun celebrates art as both punishment and transcendence. Poetic vision assaults whoever would escape vital living . . . Imagining Salamun's wives and lovers, male and female, Ballad conflates and celebrates unrestricted art and love.
— Michele Levy, World Literature Today
What a strange turn of events that a poet who hails from a country of only two million and writes in a language that very few Americans understand should have such a profound impact on American poetry. But it is the case that Tomaz Salamun is one of the most influential voices now speaking to younger American poets.
— Christopher Merrill
