Srečko Kosovel: The Poet and I

Erica Johnson Debeljak does not engage with the external image and structure of Srečko Kosovel’s verses; she does not get involved in the existing web of interpretations and polemics; above all she rejects the so-called cult of death who deny Kosovel’s great life force, energy, even his joy and have characterized him as the “purest poet of death”.  Instead she enters the labyrinth of the poet’s unexplored soul as it shimmers in his words and verses and in lived experience. She is less interested in what Kosovel said or wanted to say, striving instead to discover and understand what stirred within him, what caused poems to literally explode from him, to be hurriedly scribbled onto paper. […] In this regard, Erica Johnson Debeljak’s book is unique. And so is her effort to clarify dilemmas of exile for herself, using her particular captivating style, hard-hitting sincerity, and feminine intuition to illuminate the most intimate layers of Kosovel’s humanity.

Iztok Ilich, Primorski dnevnik, May 27, 2004