The word bare
The word BARE.
Everyone
Exposed
To his
Only language.
More silent
Than bare.
More a place
Than its
Exchangeable name.
More movement
Through the possibility
Of a place
That negates
Itself
In its creation.
Movement.
A silhouette
That
Gradually
Retreats
To the corner
Of a bedroom
In a house
That has not yet
Been built
On the edge
Of a town
That has not yet
Been
Founded.
A meadow.
But the word
GRASS
Does not grow.
Bare soil.
Everyone
Buried in it.
Everyone
Dust among dust.
With a face
To the sky.
It starts to rain.
The bare word
Slowly sinks in
The dug-up mud.
A body that
Disappears into
A quotation.
About the translator:
Brian Henry is the author of ten books of poetry, most recently Static & Snow (Black Ocean, 2015). He co-edited the international magazine Verse from 1995 to 2017 and established the Tomaž Šalamun Prize in 2015. His translation of Aleš Šteger’s The Book of Things appeared from BOA Editions in 2010 and won the Best Translated Book Award. He also has translated Tomaž Šalamun’s Woods and Chalices (Harcourt, 2008) and Aleš Debeljak’s Smugglers (BOA, 2015). His poetry and translations have received numerous honors, including an NEA fellowship, a Howard Foundation grant, the Alice Fay di Castagnola Award, the Carole Weinstein Poetry Prize, the Cecil B. Hemley Memorial Award, the George Bogin Memorial Award, and a Slovenian Academy of Arts and Sciences grant.
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