Slovenian Literator

Zajc Dane:
The Same

It’s in another world. The same. It’s the other in the same world. The same. It’s the same in the same world. Other in another. The same. He’s the same as you. The same hair. The same hands. The same head. The same eyes. The same look. The same age. He’s the same. The same madness. The same love. The same experience. The same beloved. Just now thinking the same thoughts Dancing with the same swinging steps. In twilight’s web, in midnight’s snare, Captured in the same place. The same. The same wounds. The same scars. The same doubts. The same mistakes. The same hesitations. The same failures. Which you foresaw. When you are seen, when you are in the cracked light When you are in the crowd, focusing on the same When you, the premonition, the shadow of your same self It is said when you are seen Oh, what a thought. What a double nothing. Ha. (The same words are babbled. The same tongue twisted. The same.)

Translated by Erica Johnson Debeljak

Archived by Thezaurus on 09/04/01 | permalink |

Dane Zajc

(1929-2005) A poet, essayist, and playwright who, until his retirement, worked as a librarian in Ljubljana. Considered the doyen of postwar poets, he was active in the foundation of numerous literary magazines, including Review 57 (Revija 57), Problems (Problemi) and Perspectives (Perspektive), which he also edited. His lyrical poems displayed dark and depressing atmospheres, and were suffused with stark existentialist images which helped undermine the then-obligatory aesthetics of socialist realism. In the 1960s, with the advent of neoavant-garde writing, Zajc's poems won renewed appreciation and became part of the national canon. Zajc also writes for children (poems, prose and plays). He is best known, however, for his poetic plays, such as Children of the River (Otroka reke). A former Fulbright fellow at Columbia University in New York , he has seen the publication of his collected works in five volumes in 1990. Zajc received the Prešeren Prize for lifetime achievement in 1981.