Auf den Zahnen Aluminium, auf den Lippen Kreide

'Na zobeh aluminij, na ustnicah kreda' (Aluminium on Teeth, Chalk on Lips) is Kristina Hocevar's fifth book of poetry. This collection earned Kristina Hocevar the Jenko Award for the best poetry book of the past two years; the book was also nominated for the Veronika Award. The bold, personal poetics that Kristina Hocevar continues and builds upon in this book previously earned her the Golden Bird Award (2010); the collection 'Repki' (Tails) was also nominated for the Veronika Award. At the level of internal and external form, as well as at the thematic level, 'Aluminium on Teeth, Chalk on Lips' is clearly in close proximity to its predecessors, while at the same time representing a break, or at least a marked turn, in Kristina Hocevar's poetic opus. The poetry in this collection emerges from her probing the most basic, existential foundations on which individual identity rests, which therefore gives rise to the most fundamental of existential questions for the reader. Somehow, the natural consequence of this is that in this book much more pronouncedly than in the previous author's collections Kristina Hocevar penetrates into the ephemeral. 'Aluminium on Teeth, Chalk on Lips' could be regarded as a book of fundamental, all-embracing questions at the thematic level, and as an uncompromising book of a sophisticated, highly articulate but also playful poetic language at the expressive level.