Vermont College of Fine Arts Slovenia Residency Archives

Poems from Privanje na svetlobo (Adjusting to the Light)

By Andrej Hočevar

Translated by Andrej Hočevar and Kelly Lenox

Kelly Lenox is a poet, translator and Vermont College of Fine Arts graduate. Some of you have attended the VCFA summer residencies in Slovenia where Kelly has been the boots-on-the-ground facilitator and interpreter for ages. DG particularly recalls a day he and Kelly spent wandering around Venice together during the 2008 residency. She was a delightful Virgil to dg’s Dante, though, as dg recalls, Kelly was nearly as lost as he was. In part because of her connection with Slovenia through VCFA, Kelly has made something of a specialty of discovering Slovenian poetic talent. Herewith, a series of poems by the young Slovenian poet Andrej Hočevar.

Don’t miss these poems. There are some lovely, heart-breaking lines:

I re-stack the books, I lie on the sofa,
my presence only thickening the dark,
my stillness but a thing among things.

And this:

I drink another glass of wine
out of another glass. Where are you.
There is a new color forming as the birds
breathe with the evening. Where are you.
I don’t know how to put this; I mean,
look, how I struggle with myself
for you to see me at all.

Born in 1980 in Maribor, Hočevar has published four books of poetry. He also writes essays and reviews of books and music, is a member of the editorial board of the Literatura magazine, and plays bass guitar in the rock group Mrtvi psi. His poems have been translated into Croatian, Macedonian, Serbian, Italian, Hungarian, English and German.

dg

Untitled

Meja med mano in zrakom se je
dvignila čez vrhove dreves, zdaj je
oddaljenost dneva najbolj otipljiva.
nebo je narobe obrnjeno jezero,
naježene veje, ke jih bo zdaj
zdaj pogoltila tema, stojijo
pokončno kot moški v osemdesetih.
Danes je rojstni dan mojega deda
in nov letni čas mi k nogam polaga
stare užitke, v katere začenjam
spet verjeti. A dnevi so zdaj kratki,
zato začnemo hitreje misliti
na tistega, s komer jih želimo končati.

Untitled

The border between me and the air
has risen above the treetops—
the remoteness of the day at its most tangible.
The sky is an inverted lake,
the bristled branches, soon to be
swallowed by the dark,
stand upright like a man in his eighties.
Today is my grandfather’s birthday
and the new season brings me
old pleasures I’m beginning to believe in once again.
But the days are short now
and so it is earlier when we begin
thinking of the person
we want to end them with.

By Martin Balgach

In the battle for emotional supremacy
I’ve challenged the wind to a duel
but I’m carrying an idea instead of a gun

Now I know the wind is tough and cold
and not in that romantic
this is invigorating kind of cold
but more that middle-aged guy
in baggy black dungarees
drinking alone at a dive bar cold

It’s that tough in your gut
like a memory-you-want-to-forget
cold, it’s the kind of cold
that spits in your lungs
and tugs at your heart like a kid
tugging on the tail of a pet
but the pet is whimpering
because the game went too far

And I know why the motion
of each new morning keeps teasing us—
The problem is heaven—
We have the idea of more so we want more

I’ve been considering this for days
I’ve branded the hindquarter of my brain
with the melancholy symbol of a neon duck
fucking itself with a crucifix

Yeah, there are a thousand funny things to say
but the real things get caught in my throat like paste

Either way, tomorrow will be a new massacre
I’ll be losing the fight, staring at the sky

The cosmos will look like an old string of Christmas lights,
the kind that all go out when one bulb breaks
But it won’t be Christmas as the wind keeps kicking

—Martin Balgach

This isn’t Montpelier?

On Comings and Goings:

After 22 hours of flights from Trieste to Rome to Charlotte to San Diego, life has returned to some semblance of normal. The Slovenian residency had much to offer: wine, travel, good food, wine, beautiful vistas across the Skocjan valley, trips to Italy, wine, Croatia,the amazing Soca valley in northern Slovenia, and more wine. What the Slovenian residency lacked in intensity (Vermont has the lectures, readings, and workshops…we had those things, too, just not as many) it made up for in scenic and cultural beauty. I returned energized and motivated to begin 4th semester. Did I mention they had wine in Slovenia?

On Readings & Hooligans:

We had two student readings, the first at a restaurant in Betanjc, the little village just on the left side of the church in the above picture. We read outside, in the dim light of dusk. When it was my turn to read, a group of rowdy, drunken soccer fans descended on the table next to ours. I read in darkness, holding a pen light over my story, and shouted for the entire 5 minute reading! I think Uruguay won the match. I also think no one heard my story, except for the word “blowjob”, which apparently was heard clearly across the entire restaurant. I feel that such an experience can only help me for the upcoming graduation reading in Montpelier.

—Richard Farrell