Poets & Translators Tribute Tomaž Šalamun at Artforum

Artist and friend Abraham Adams leads a tribute to Tomaž Šalamun (1941–2014) for Artforum. Chosen ones include Matvei Yankelevich, Ariana Reines, Purdey Lord Kreiden and Michael Thomas Taren, and John Ashbery. "The dust and stones of his poetry are here, his soul is scattered here, so no, I don’t think he is dead. That’s all I have to say about that. Here are a few poets I asked who had something to say about him. There are many others who do too," writes Adams. An excerpt:

I knew Tomaž Šalamun over a long time, but saw him relatively briefly on widely spaced occasions. Each time he came to New York we would get together for a little blast of Slovenian mirth and Sloveno-American poetry. And then he would be gone, leaving me with the illusion that a close friend had just come and left on another brilliant voyage. He seemed to be at home everywhere. Perhaps even Ljubljana, which to my regret I have never seen. They say it’s beautiful and sophisticated and yet obscure and off-the-radar, terms that might also apply to Tomaž and his crackling poetry.

—John Ashbery is a poet based in New York.

I have a hundred words. I met him in Slovenia, at Days of Poetry and Wine. There were dozens of us, drunk and full of sausages. “You are the strongest American poet” was the first thing he said to me. He was tanned and glowing, wearing white. I remember a brace and a cane. He had just come from China, where the Great Wall had somehow hurled itself against his leg. In the basement of a winery I pointed to his brow, with its elegant globule, and told him his third eye looked very auspicious. He pointed to my forehead and said, “Yours too.”

—Ariana Reines is a poet based in New York.

Read more at Artforum. And join Ugly Duckling Presse for a memorial gathering, to be held at their office on Sunday, March 8, at 4:00 p.m. Anyone wishing to be a reader or to briefly speak about Tomaž is invited to do so.