ANTHOLOGIES OF BEAT AND UNDERGROUND POETRY EDITED BY VOJISLAV DESPOTOV

Abstract

In the context of Serbian (Yugoslavian) translations and literary reception of the Beat and post-Beat generation of poets, the anthology Fuck You: from the American Underground Poetry (Fuck you: iz američke underground poezije; 1985, 1986, 1989, 1991, 1998), edited by the neo-avant-garde poet, novelist and translator Vojislav Despotov, seems slightly incongruous and peculiar in its selection of poets and poems and its foreword. For that reason, I have searched for a potential source of Despotov՚s anthology and found it in the German anthology Fuck you: Underground poems. Untergrund Gedichte (1968, 1980), edited by Ralf-Rainer Rygulla. Namely, Despotov translated Rygulla՚s anthology and his afterword almost in its entirety and without naming any sources, claiming the authorship of the selection, the translation from English and the accompanying text. Rygulla՚s selection and afterword had been perceived as apolitical in his native culture in the frame of revolutionary 1968 and other, more socially and politically engaged anthologies of contemporary American poetry, but Despotov made it even less relevant in this regard, transposing it eighteen years after its initial publication. The other anthology that Despotov published in 1991, Beat Poetry (Bit poezija) is also not original, but entirely based on Beat Poets edited by Gene Baro in 1961; this time, however, Despotov did not appropriate Baro՚s foreword, crediting him properly instead. The problem with this anthology, apart from plagiarizing someone else՚s selection of poets and poems, is very poor translation from English, which underlines the importance of German as mediatory language in the previous case. For all that, the contribution of these anthologies to the reception of Beat and post-Beat poetry is rather questionable, counterproductive and disadvantageous.