Scent of the Unseen
translated by
James and Viera Sutherland-Smith
2003
136 pages, paperback
ISBN 978-1-900072-39-7
This first UK publication of one of Slovakia's leading women poets features works from several collections of her poetry, selected by James and Viera Sutherland-Smith. It focuses on poems written in the 1990s — perhaps Haugová's most fruitful period — which moves decisively form the anecdotal mainstream to a poetry which partakes of what D. H. Lawrence termed the “quick” of being. Haugová offers a poetry which continually reaches beyond itself, taking us into what might be unseen at the start of a poem, but which is palpably evident once the poem has penetrated the pores of our skin. She explores the ambiguous nature of love and desire and her work has been described as neither straightforwardly lyrical nor anecdotal and resolutely anti-confessional.