A collection of poetry from one of the leading European poets, translated from the Slovenian by Michael Biggins.

Inspired by Rimbaud and Ashbery, the Slovenian poet Tomaž Šalamun is now inspiring the younger generation of American poets—and Woods and Chalices will secure his place in the ranks of influential, experimental twenty-first-century writers. Šalamun's strengths are on display here: innocence and obscenity, closely allied; a great historical reach; and questions, commands, and statements of identity that challenge all norms and yet seem uncannily familiar and right— “I'm molasses, don't forget that." Coat of ArmsThe wet sun stands on dark bricks.Through the king's mouth we see teeth.He sews lips. The owl moves its head.She's tired, drowsy and black.She doesn't glow in gold like she'd have to.

A new collection from "one of the indispensable poets of the era" (Jorie Graham).In The Blue Tower, language is remade with tenderness and abandon: "Rommel was kissing heaven's dainty hands and yet / from his airplane above the Sahara my uncle / Rafko Perhauc still blew him to bits." There is an effervescence to Šalamun's poetry that has made him an inspiration to successive generations of American poets, "a poetic bridge between old European roots and the American adventure" (Associated Press). Trivial and monumental, beautiful and grotesque, healing, ferocious, mad: The Blue Tower is an essential volume.