Ivan Štrpka is immersed in poetry. His poetic language in the collection “Fragment of the /Knihghtly/ Forest”, as its title suggests, is fragmentary. He finds poetry in seemingly ordinary things, plays with words, touches us with them in silence, gently but insistently, rhythmically. The poetic mosaic gradually forms new meanings and images. It depends on the reader how far he lets himself be carried away. We are in the forest, traveling to the past, only to find ourselves in the urban jungle here and now. Štrpka’s poetry can be read repeatedly as a story, we can open the Fragment anywhere, then immediately return to the beginning and devour page after page. We feel postmodernity, we feel a special poetics that brings many meanings, layers but still leaves the reader freedom of interpretation.
Ivan Štrpka is a poet, essayist, novelist, song lyrics writer, one of the goup of The Lonely Runners. He made his debut in 1969 with the collection of poetry, “The Brief Childhood of Lancers”. It was followed by “Tristan tára”. He was subsequently banned from publishing in the 1970s because of his political views. After the Velvet Revolution in 1989 he worked as an editor in chief of the magazine “Kultúrny život”. As a song lyrics writer he worked with the musican and singer Dežo Ursiny. They created 12 albums together. Štrpka has published 18 books of poetry, the most recent are: “Fragment (rytierskeho) lesa” (Fragment of the [Knights] Forest, 2017); “Kam plášť, tam vietor” (The Turncoat, 2018).
