Backward

The Slovenian poet Barbara Korun presented her work Backwards to the people of Trieste. The collection was published by the Maribor-based publishing house Pivec and was nominated this year for the Veronika Award. It arises from a reflection on death. “It contains poems about death and encounters with it, but not only that. Just as life is full of everything, death too can be bright and full of everything. While writing these poems, I became aware of this and of how much I love life, and that without pain there is no beauty either,” said the poet. The collection was created during her mourning for her mother’s death, explained Barbara Korun. On this demanding subject, she was in conversation at the Trieste Book Center with the poet Marija Kostnapfel. The evening was organized in cooperation with the Society of Slavic Scholars of Trieste-Gorizia-Udine. (...)

Suffering and the process of overcoming it are also reflected in the style of the poems, which the author shaped in several different patterns, including elliptical ones. The rhythm is somewhat harder, assonances and alliterations are frequent, and words are sometimes split apart and without punctuation.

(...) Eva Skabar (From Primorski Dnevnik, October 20th, 2024)