Slovene Migrant Poetry in Australia Written in English

Abstract

Many Slovene migrants in Australia, especially those belonging to the younger generation, have come to accept Australia as a new, second homeland, a lucky and in many ways promised country. (Of course, those authors born to Slovene parents regard themselves as Australians, but they are interested in their "roots".) Like so many other migrants from various countries of the world, their parents have gone through the process of adaptation and assimilation, which is why they experience a certain linguistic "schizophrenia" that is to be taken as a new positive value. Consequently, they use in their writing, along with Slovene, also English. Although written in English, their work is thus partly the fruit of Slovene poetic sensibility as well as the new Australian experience. For these poets the traditional "migrant" themes are (in most cases) no longer true, such as for example the exaggerated sentimental nostalgia for home or the difficulties to assert oneself in a new environment.