Six Slovak Poets

(AUTHORS) JAN BUZASSY was born in 1935 in the village of Kocovce. He studied Librarianship and Slovak at the Philosophical Faculty of Comenius University in Bratislava, then went on to become editor, later editor-in-chief, of the important literary journal Mlada tvorba (Young Writing) until it was banned in 1970. He worked for many years as an editor in the Slovensku spisovatel publishing house and in 1994-5 became editor-in-chief of the magazine Kulturny zivot. He is now retired and lives in Bratislava. His published poetry collections are: Game with Knives (1965), The Cynic School (1966), Nausicaa (1970), Beauty Leads the Stone (1972), Fairytale (1975), A Year, Phonolite (both 1976), Spirit of the Elderberry (1978), St. John's Wort (1979), Plain, Mountains (1982), The Golden Section (1988), Remedy with Wine (1993), Days (1995), Light of the Waters (1997), An Autumn Stroll (1999), Mrs Faust and Other Poems (2001), Still Life - a Brief Lent (2004), Double-winged Doors (2006), Vixen (2008). A selection of his poetry, Melancholy Hunter, appeared in English from Modry Peter Ltd, Ontario, Canada in 2002. He is a notable translator from English, bringing the poetry of Byron, Eliot, Pound, Ginsberg and others to the Slovak reader. MILA HAUGOVA, born in 1942 in Budapest, spent her childhood in Slovakia. She studied at the Agricultural University in Nitra and after graduating worked as an agronomist for a short time. From 1965 to 1985 she taught at a number of schools, most recently at an elementary school in Bratislava. During the decade 1986-96 she worked on the editorial board of the literary magazine Romboid, following which she retired. She lives alternately in Bratislava and in the village of Zajacia Dolina. Her published poetry collections are: Rusty Clay (1980), Mutable Surface (1983), A Possible Tenderness (1984), Clear Days (1990), Primal Love (1991), Nostalgia (1993), Lady with a Unicorn (1995), Alfa Centauri (1996), Winged Woman (1999), Closed Garden, Genotext, Atlas of Sand (all 2001), Archives of the Body (2004), Target(s) (2005), Plant with a Dream: Vertical (2006), White Manuscripts (2007), Disappearing Angels (2008). A selection of her work in English was published in 2001 by Arc Publications under the title The Scent of the Unseen. She translates poetry mainly from English and German and has prepared selections from the work of Sylvia Plath, Ingeborg Bachmann, Sarah Kirsch and other authors. IVAN STRPKA was born in 1941 in Hlohovec. He studied Spanish and Slovak at the Philosophical Faculty of Comenius University in Bratislava. While still a student he was on the editorial boards of the literary periodical Mlada tvorba and the magazine Kulturny zivot. Later he was an editor in Slovensky spisovatel and Tatran publishing houses. From 1973 to 1986 he worked as a script editor in Czechoslovak Television in Bratislava and later was editor-in-chief of the social magazine Flights of Youth. When Literarny tyzdennik made its appearance in 1988, he became deputy editor-in-chief. After the revival of Kulturny zivot he worked as its editor-in-chief until it folded again in 1993, when he became a freelance writer. Since 2000 he has been editor-in-chief of the literary magazine Romboid. He lives in Bratislava. His published poetry collections are: The Brief Childhood of Lancers (1969), Tristan the Gossip (1971), Now and Other Islands (1981), Prior to Metamorphosis (1982), News from an Apple (1985), Everything is in the Shell (1989), Beautiful Nude World (1990), Location, South-west. A Mother's Death (1995), Interludes. Dolls Shorter by a Head (1997), Master Mu and the Women's Voices (1997), Baby; A Crisis, Voices and Other Poems (both 2001), 25 Poems (2003), Silent Hand. Ten Elegies (2006), Psychopolis, Thin Ice (2007). He has also published a selection of song lyrics, two essay collections and a novel. PETER REPKA was born in 1944 in Bratislava, where he studied at the Engineering Faculty of the Slovak Technical University. For three years he worked as an editor of the literary magazine Mlada tvorba, until its publication was halted by the authorities. In the early 1970s he left socialist Czechoslovakia, emigrating to the Federal Republic of Germany, where he joined his wife. There he began a career in business which he still pursues. He lives in Offenbach. His published collections of poetry are: Hen in the Cathedral (1969), Rail-way (1992), Darling Desert (1996), Carnival in the Monastery (2002), Relics of Angels (2006). His book of literary journalism Arise and Walk was printed in 1970, but censorship prevented its distribution and the entire edition was pulped. Its second edition appeared only in 1998. KAMIL PETERAJ was born in 1945 in Bratislava, where he studied the violin at the Conservatory and, later, dramaturgy at the University of Musical Arts. Until 1979 he worked as musical script editor at the Bratislava theatre Nova scena, then worked for a considerable time as a freelance writer, supporting himself mainly by writing rock music lyrics. From 1991 he worked in advertising but again turned to freelance writing. He lives in Bratislava. His published poetry collections are: Winter Birds' Orchard (1965), Time for the Viola (1966), Queen of the Night (1968), Coming Out with the Evening Star (1971), Lime Tree Mansion (1973), Faust and Margaretas (1981), Minute Poems (1986), Shelters / maxims / telegrams (1987), A Second of Delight (1989), House of the Virgin (1991), Lyrical Corso (1991), What You Whisper to the Girls (2007). He has also published three collections of aphorisms, six collections of song texts and two collections of verse for children. DANIEL HEVIER was born in 1955 in Bratislava and studied aesthetics and the Slovak language at the Philosophical Faculty of Bratislava's Comenius University. While still a student he began working as a literary editor in Czechoslovak Radio, after which he devoted himself to writing. From 1988 he worked as an editor in the Mlade leta publishing house and in 1990 he became its editor-in-chief. In 1992 he established his own publishing house HEVI in Bratislava, where he works full-time as well as continuing to write. His published poetry collections are: Butterfly Merry-go-round (1974), With Dad in the Garden (1976), The Bird Drinks from the Wheelrut (1977), Nonstop (1981), Electronic Clown (1983), Movable Shore (1984), Man Seeks Sea (1984), In Every Door (1988), Lousy Thirty (1990), Poems from an Advertising Campaign for the End of the World (1996), White Burns Best (2003). He has also published a book of song lyrics, Rustyhead (1997), the prose work Do You Want to be Happy? Ask Me How... (1997), and a collection of essays, Making Sense in One Language (1988). He has written a large number of children's books. (TRANSLATOR) JOHN MINAHANE was born near Baltimore, in the south-west of Ireland, in 1950. English was his original spoken language, though he studied the Irish language as a school subject from the age of 5. His first published work, a short story, appeared when he was 18, but he wrote poetry and prose fiction only in short bursts at long intervals, being mainly occupied with Irish, European and world history. These two interests came together in the ancient literature of the Irish language and the peculiar Christian culture bound up with it. Minahane's main work on this topic, which includes translations of many of the ancient poems (The Christian Druids: on the filid or philosopher-poets of Ireland), was published in Dublin in 1993. A review of a seventeenth-century controversy between poets of the North and South of Ireland (The Contention of the Poets: an essay in Irish intellectual history) followed in 2000. Minahane went to live in Slovakia in 1996. Over the past few years he has translated many poems and prose pieces by Slovak writers of the past and present, from Ivan Krasko to Ivan Kolenic. His largest undertaking was a selection of the poems and literary essays of Ladislav Novomesky (Slovak Spring, 2004). The long biographical essay included in this volume sets Novomesky in his European context (though it is intended as notes towards a life of the poet, not as a substitute for an adequate biography). (EDITOR) IGOR HOCHEL (read Hokhel) was born in 1953 in Bratislava and studied Slovak and Bulgarian languages and literature at the Philosophical Faculty of Comenius University (FFUK) in Bratislava. After graduating, he was employed at the Pedagogical Faculty in Nitra. From 1982 to 1985 he was a lector of Slovak at the St. Kliment of Ochrid University in Sofia, Bulgaria, after which he returned to the Pedagogical Faculty in Nitra. From 1987 to 2001 he was part of the editorial staff of the literary journal Romboid, being its editor-in-chief from 1996-1999. Since 1996 he has been employed as a lecturer (currently as docent) in the Department of Slovak Literature at the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Constantin Philosopher in Nitra, lecturing on Slovak literature of the second half of the twentieth century, contemporary literature, literary criticism, semiotics of literature and creative writing. From 1991-2004 he was a visiting lecturer on the History of Bulgarian literature at the FFUK. He has published five published collections of poetry: The Tree in Front of the House (1979), Amidst Is the Silence (1993), The Bark Is Cracking Tenderly (1997), Woven from the Hair (2005), and Scouts in the Land of the Missing (1995), a poem complemented by graphic lists. For over thirty years, he has devoted himself to literary criticism; selections from his essays and reviews were published in 2003 under the title Touches, Probes, Attitudes and in 2005 his monograph, Ladislav Ballek: Story as a Principle was published. He is the co-author (with L. Cuzy and Z. Kakosova) of Slovak Literature after 1989 (2007). He is also known as a translator from Bulgarian, and has translated the poems of Jordan Radickov, Ivan Davidkov, Maxim Asenov and other Bulgarian poets.

• Series Editor's Preface Introduction JAN BUZASSY: Biography / XXXVII / XXXVIII / XLII / LXVII / Dazzling / You sleep - A" / The soul we call - A" / You're dreaming - A"/ You're dreaming - A" / You're dreaming - A" / Dosage / Fragment of Counsel / The Animal Side / Humanness MILA HAUGOVA: Biography / To My Daughter about Love / Garden: Heart of Love / Insomnia / September / i am the white mist - A" / Translucency / Closely / target for a woman dreaming / target breathing room / target for a bowwoman / target for pain / target for the unique one / target for time together / Levitation - A" / - I want you to know - A" / As I grow accustomed - A" / Fragments of the Vanishing Language of Love / Fragments of a Vanishing Childhood Terror (Speech) / Gemini / Lamentations 5 IVAN STRPKA: Biography / Island / Mutineers in the Doldrums / The Blue Temples of Lancers / The Past of a Pause / While the Connection lasts / Ever Northwards / Bird Steps / Everything's in the Shell (Extract) / Goodbye, Blue Eyes / What's Down at the Bottom / The Gun Has Jammed in No-Man's Land / Master Mu on the Circle PETER REPKA: Biography / Darling Desert (Extracts) / Carnival in the Monastery (Extracts) - Responsorial Psalm KAMIL PETERAJ: Biography / Melancholias / Fish / Butterfly / Horse / Poste Restante / Death of a Hen / Mutes / Falling Asleep / About not dying / Hospital / Grandmother / Tomorrow May Be Too Late / Chris Columbus / Inside an Unknown Bottle / House of the Virgin / The Journey There Is the Journey Back DANIEL HEVIER: Biography / Little Motors / My 13 Daughters Are Playing Outside / Man Gave Names to All the Animals / With Motor Switched Off / Balance / Hamlet, Mad As Ever / winners of wintertime / viking / talent for travelling / ironic appendix to a self-portrait / iceland / christ wanted / warning / sorrowful grass / nine years old / messenger with no news About the Translator About the Editor