Poetics of affectivity by Michal Tallo

Abstract

Michal Tallo belongs to the young generation reviving certain aspects of anesthetic poetics, which formed in Slovak poetry at the beginning of the 1990s. Anesthetic procedures are directly related to the observed aspect of emotionality in Tallo‘s work. The paper follows the male lyrical heroes from the collections Antimita (Anti-intimacy) (2016), Δ [Delta] (Delta) (2018), Kniha tmy (The Book of Darkness) (2021), and the male characters of the short story Futbal (Football) from the book Všetko je v poriadku, všade je láska (All is well, there is love everywhere) (2024). The paper focuses primarily on one element of Michal Tallo poetics, which is called "admitted affectivity." Affectivity proves specific characteristics of the author's work, which oscillate between the two extreme positions of suppressing and releasing emotions.