From Nostalgia, Utopia
Where the Forest Season Ends
I was five and in the darkness of the forest by the farm
lit a fire. Not because of wolves but for the crackling of flames
and shadows dancing on trunks of the spruces, for thoughts
of night creatures arising from them. Everything transformed,
the odor of the magnificent conifers scented with smoke
reshaping reality into time without time and of the forest season
ending so stunningly fast, perhaps with the crackle
of a twig, or quiver of a shadow
on old pine bark. And this shocking fragility continues beyond,
the fire shimmering for decades, the forest no more,
but its shadows fall through the poem, the flames persist, the glow
giving warmth. I'm basking in you, in your fleece of dreams, in the trusted
wilderness of primeval space, beneath fern and nightly rustle
of some penetrating image in some vanished forest,
in a glimmer that stays, and later with the gentle flare
of August, a rush of words overcomes me, with force.
Sheepskin
I've given names to so many of you! Named at birth,
never renamed; your numbers recorded in the register
on the shelves, together with Dante, Homer
and Li-Po who smiles searching for young mushrooms
just after rain! In this intertwining of the seen and unseen
things are clear: high in a poplar a crow's nest,
nearby in slender alders the yellow tits congregate.
My idea to merge the herds of the earth and flocks of the sky
has not worked out so well. But just listen, just
observe the weavers weaving those supple shelters.
Wool is lining a nest for my imagination,
the fleece luminous in the universe after everything's died.
What lies there, trampled in cold mud, is just a tuft of wool
from the nest. All the rest, beyond knowing, sleeps in a warm pen.
Ivan Dobnik, born in 1960 in Celje, is a poet, editor, translator, essay author, and literary critic. He studied philosophy and comparative literature at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Ljubljana. Is the founder and chief editor of the literary magazine Poetikon (2005-present) as well as co-founder of the Literary Association House of Poetry (2006-present). He has published the following works: Osvobajanje (Liberation, 1980), Kaligrafija lire (Caligraphy of the Lyre, 1999), Zapreš svoje oči (Closing Your Eyes, 2003), Rapsodija v mrzli zimi (Rhapsody in a Cold Winter, 2006), Zapisi z drevesnih lističev (Tree Leaf Notes, 2006), Svetilnik (The Lighthouse, 2008), Pred začetkom (Before the Beginning, 2010), Druga obala (Another Shore, 2011), Bolska (2015), Magični pesniški izreki (Magical Poetic Dictums, 2016), Tihe pesmi (Silent Poems,2020), Čajne pesmi (Tea Poems, 2021), Rojstvo oaze (The Birth of Oasis,2022), Do konca odprto nebo (The Sky Wholly Open,2023), Nostalgija, utopija (Nostalgia, Utopia,2024) and Tajga (Taiga,2025). His poems are translated into several languages. He lives in Ljubljana.
Miriam Drev is a poet, novelist, literary translator from English and German, as well as a literary critic and publicist born in Ljubljana, Slovenia. In 2022 her sixth book of poems Ancestral Healing was published, receiving the Veronika Award (Veronikina nagrada) in 2023, for the best Slovenian poetry collection of the year. Her poems have been translated into many languages and are published in several anthologies of Slovene poetry as well as in literary magazines abroad. She lives as an independent writer and translator in Ljubljana.
Barbara Siegel Carlson is the author of four books of poetry, most recently Current published by Lily Poetry Review Books, 2026. She is the co-translator (with Ana Jelnikar) of Look Back, Look Ahead, Selected Poems of Srečko Kosovel. Her poetry and translations have appeared in On the Seawall, Verse Daily, Mid-American Review, Salamander, 2River, The Poetry Porch, among others. Carlson is a Co-Poetry in Translation Editor of Solstice.
