Slovenia as a Locale in Mainstream Australian Poetry

Abstract

Slovenia has only recently come to feature in mainstream Australian literature, more precisely in contemporary Australian poetry. It should be stressed that Slovenia is no longer present only in Slovene migrant poetry written in Australia as it has so far been the case: it entered the major contemporary Australian anthologies. This testifies to the fact that Slovenia no longer belongs to the uncharted part of Central Europe on the geographical and consequently also on the literary map. Rather than that Slovenia increasingly makes part of an average Australian "Grand Tour" travel itinerary in Europe; it has thus entered the Australian cultural consciousness. In this light two recent Australian poems with Slovenia as a literary locale are discussed, Andrew Taylor's "Morning in Ljubljana" (Taylor) and Susan Hampton's poem Yugoslav Story" {Hampton)