Raymond Miller in cooperation with Tatjana Jamnik have produced only the second book-length translation (the first was Polish) of Jure Detela's verse. Both translations are of Mah in srebro (1983). The series includes Tomaž Šalamun's poetry (numbers 3 and 29) and a Slovene Sampler (22), which also contains Šalamun, so it is fitting to have published the other, decade-younger icon(oclast) of the 1960s–70s. Detela's collaborator on the 1970s cultural scene, Iztok Osojnik's introduction gives historical context for the general reader and a characterization of Detela's ethical stance. Both Osojnik and Miller relate Detela's writings to what would later be called eco-poetics, but both sense the term does not capture the profundity of the poet's thought and expression. As with a number of other Slovene poets (such as Gregor Strniša), an appreciation for the poetry's philosophical underpinnings is essential, so the introduction, translator's note, and notes on most of the forty-four poems are welcome complements to the well-crafted translations.

The eleven-page translator's note provides details of how the translation project came to fruition and fortuitously coincided with renewed attention to the poet in Slovenia in 2017–18. Miller's description of rendering the collection in English constitutes a small primer on how to approach poetry translation. He gives several specific examples and admits challenges and necessary compromises in versification, register, and sound patterns. A simple example: Miller points out the preponderance of (five) r-sounds and “dark” vowels in poem seven, the six-line translation of which contains the same number, but uses a different set of vowel sounds.

Three examples, one from each of Osojnik's three categories, illustrate the quality of the translations. “Antigonina pesem” (Antigone's Poem) is about darkness and death. The poem is unusual because it contains a number of comparisons, while Miller notes that one of Detela's four poetic principles is to “use poetic devices sparingly (‘ascetically’)” (108). “Antigone's poem,” however, compares a decaying corpse and a rotting tree, a plague and whirlwind, equates face and mask and body and “the pattern of the whole earth,” and likens heavenly beings’ graves to a ship and a gateway. The translation handles the comparisons precisely, as can be seen in how the linkages are rendered: kakor—“in the way,” je—“is,” je enaka—“is like,” and kot—“like.” The translation mostly adheres to the original word order and reproduces its cadence, and it partially conveys assonance with some assonance (poznajo “they know,” three times in a stanza) and alliteration, but it is impossible to match the equivalent of eighty-seven of 204 words in the original with Slovene o or ò, including such key words as drevo “tree,” truplo “corpse,” grob “grave,” and slo “lust.”

Haikus are representative of the second category, poems extolling nature. “Pesem za jelene” (Poem for the Harts, 17) is Detela's best known poem of this kind, one that epitomizes his view of the natural world as radically distinct from humans. The poem also relates to the first category because of the centrality of the animal's confrontation with violence (nasilje) and death. A curious and effective aspect of the translation is its duplication of the animal being addressed, so that “Jeleni!” becomes “Harts, harts!” or “Oh, harts, harts!; “Jeleni! Jeleni!” becomes “Oh, harts, harts, harts!”; and “Jeleni! Jeleni! Jeleni!” becomes “Oh, harts, Harts, Harts, Harts!” The insertion of “Oh,” and then the increasing repetition with upper case amplifies the poet's address. Here and in other poems translations of words for nature are exact.

“Spomin na Vladimirja Memona” (In Memory of Vladimir Memon) is an example of Osojnik's third, smallest category poems dedicated to ethical stalwarts. This poem also relates to another category, that of nature poems, as seen by the use of the key phrase “tuje zavesti” (alien consciences), which the note to poem forty-four says, “is a variation of the standard Detela formula ‘beings from alien worlds,’ by which he means non-human animals” (124). The consistent translation of such key words throughout the collection is a strength of the work. The reader will want to consider their reoccurrence throughout, which might help explain the poems’ otherwise apparently unmotivated arrangement.