About Tomaž Šalamun
Šalamun is the author of more than 40 collections of poetry in Slovenian and English. He published his first collection, Poker (1966), at the age of 25. His poetry, using elements of surrealism and polyphony, was influenced by the work of Frank O’Hara, John Ashbery, Charles Simic, and Charles Baudelaire. His collections of poetry in English include The Selected Poems of Tomaž Šalamun (Ecco Press, 1998); The Shepherd, the Hunter (Pedernal, 1992); The Four Questions of Melancholy (White Pine Press, 1997); Feast (Harcourt, 2000), Ballad for Metka Krasovec (Twisted Spoon Press, 2001, translated by Michael Biggins), Poker (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2nd edition 2008, translated by Joshua Beckman and Šalamun), Row! (Arc Publications, 2006), The Book for My Brother (Harcourt), Woods and Chalices (Harcourt, 2008, translated by Brian Henry), There’s the Hand and There’s the Arid Chair (Counterpath, 2009), and On the Tracks of Wild Game (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2012). His poetry has been widely anthologized and translated into more than 20 languages.
Michael Biggins is a native of Kansas and was educated at the University of Kansas. He has translated from Slovene previously and is currently at work translating satirical stories of the sixties and seventies from Russian. He teaches in the Modern Languages Department of Knox College in Galesberg, Illinois.
