Uroš Zupan

grew up in the small mining town of Trbovlje, which he describes in his poems and essays, and studied Comparative Literature at the University of Ljubljana. Many aspects of his poetics touch on beatnik poetry and the tradition of metaphysical poetry, and his long poems are lyrical and philosophical at the same time. His collection Nasledstvo (Inheritance) is “a song of the angels and the Dark Knight privileged to discover the most solid points of the world in the empty hall of the world.” In the volume Lokomotive (Locomotives), on the other hand, the poet observes a train-engine graveyard and enjoys the smells of factory halls in all their futile hollowness. It is a book informed by the poet’s recollection of his enthusiasm as a child for train engines, which, to adults, are nothing more than means of transport, empty machines. Zupan transfers many of his poetic themes to his essays and vice versa.