Burning Tongues

'Aleš Šteger is a poet of the mutable world, “emptied of solidity”, writing “between/ The time of the word/ And the time/ When/ A word/Is devoured”. Emerging in the aftermath of the wars that broke former Yugoslavia into many countries, Šteger has become one of the most significant European poets of the new century. In his hands it is as if poetry were giving up its last secrets, “when books don’t open to speak but to whisper”, and metaphors are “instantly dispersed by a galactic wind". His language slips through fissures of time and space, where, for example, “Hayden plays his saxophone in the Hotel Europa Regina” and all manner of ordinary things become objects of cosmic wonderment: bread and knives, shoes, seahorses, toothpicks, earrings and paperclips. We are fortunate to have these selections from five of his books and also new poems, translated beautifully by Brian Henry. More than a new Selected, this is a gift to the English language and a bridge between worlds.' — Carolyn Forché

'This selection of poems from six collections covers the years 1995 to 2020, with an additional six new pieces... Inventive and highly original in conception and execution: open at random and marvel.' - Frank Startup, The School Librarian

‘For anyone interested in the state of Europe, Aleš Šteger’s Burning Tongues is an indispensable read. Widely travelled, Šteger is among the continent’s most important mid-generation poets, a stylish Central European culture-maker, by turn playwright, editor, festival director, visual artist and cultural ambassador. He writes with peculiarly Slovenian playfulness about contemporary society and sensibility: the hyper-reality of his work fizzes with zeitgeist. This substantial volume is easy to read and beautifully translated.’ – Fiona Sampson, The Tablet (Summer Reading)