“With his second book, Michal Tallo proves that he is one of the most outstanding voices in contemporary poetry.”
- Derek Rebro, Vlna Magazine
"A story of love written with precision and beauty, accompanied by an equally enchanting book design: Michal Tallo’s second poetry collection showcases his talent and the courage to live his own life."
- Mila Haugová, Pravda Newspaper
“Tallo’s 'Antimita' doesn’t suffer from the instability typical of debuts or any other expected weaknesses of a first book; on the contrary, I would (cautiously) say that it is one of the most impressive phenomena in our poetry at the moment.”
-Matúš Mikšík, Knižná revue / The Book Revue
Michal Tallo (1993) is a Slovak poet, writer, translator and radio presenter. He is the author of three books of poetry - Antimita (Antimacy, 2016), Δ (Delta, 2018) and Kniha tmy (The Book of Darkness, 2022), published as a conceptual object - a black box containing various documents, remnants of a fictional lost civilization destroyed by its gradual transition from late capitalism into religious fascism. Tallo’s poems and short stories have been translated into several languages and published in foreign anthologies and magazines; the Ukrainian translation of Antimita was released in 2018 by Krok publishing house (Антимність; translated by Oleksandra Kovalchuk). In recent years, Tallo was also awarded various writers’ residencies (Norway, Poland, Czech Republic) and presented his work at many international festivals around Europe. He regularly publishes poetry, prose, reviews, essays and translations of contemporary writing from English in Slovak and Czech magazines. He is the coordinator of Básne SK/CZ poetry prize and the chief editor of Lentikular - a poetry imprint of Brak publishing house. In 2020, Tallo was nominated for the international Václav Burian Poetry Prize. His most recent work is a translation of two collections by the acclaimed British poet Andrew McMillan - Physical and Playtime - published as a single volume by the Literárna bašta publishing house as Telo / Čas hier in July 2022. Everything’s Fine, Love Is Everywhere, Tallo's short story collection, is due in Summer 2024. These stories deal with tired, overworked people who lost their names, identities and motivations and are no longer able to escape from or even reflect the weird things happening all around them in time of societal collapse.
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Poems from Antimita (Antimacy)
translated by John Minahane
b.
eventually you’ll meet him anyhow, walking the opposite way through his town,
you’re hurrying to the station, off, back home, after six days
of unannounced stay, you didn’t know whether to admit
to the need to declare
yourself, the desire to see and be seen,
eventually you’ll meet him anyhow, appearing the same as a year ago,
he’ll look at you and there’s nothing
in that, a reflection of a shiny advertising panel,
he won’t slow down or speed up, and you also will not,
and also there’s nothing in that, you know only
that he sees you,
that he knows
you see him
nausea
your view is broad, you have certainty in majority opinion, you need make
no surveys, the physical features are tangible, and hence
objectively measurable, leanness, hairiness of limbs,
length of fingers, set of the lower jaw, and curve of the brow ridge,
and with these compare the atopic eczema carried on into adulthood,
that man
furthermore came and stated something else, did not agree, he cannot be right,
his perception is twisted and disturbed, it departs from the norm,
he would touch you,
in your version vis-à-vis touching (you) there is universal
and on request documentable in detail
disgust