Soiled With Earth, Drunk On Air – Sibila Petlevski

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Soiled With Earth, Drunk On Air is an evocative poetry collection by Croatian writer and poet Sibila Petlevski, written between 2019 and 2020 and self-translated into English by the author. At the heart of the collection are plants, herbs, trees, smoke, air, soil, and other elements of the natural world, which become more than poetic imagery: they are active presences and protagonists through which human experience is explored.

Petlevski describes the collection as a kind of libretto for whispering to magical herbs and listening to the voices of silence. Her poems create a world in which the boundary between human beings and nature becomes fluid. The natural environment is not simply something that surrounds us; it becomes a language through which fear, longing, memory, vulnerability, and hope can be expressed.

Written in the years surrounding the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the poems possess an unexpected prescience. Their recurring themes of isolation, uncertainty, confinement, silence, and fear resonate strongly with the collective experience of lockdown. Yet the collection is not defined by anxiety alone. Instead, Petlevski proposes another way of understanding vulnerability: by recognizing human beings as inseparable from the larger systems of life that sustain them.

This perspective gives the book its central idea of an “ecology of the spirit.” The poems suggest that resilience may begin with a renewed awareness of our connection to the natural world. Plants become teachers, witnesses, companions, and metaphors for endurance and transformation. Images of roots, fire, air, growth, and decay create a poetic landscape where the intimate and the planetary constantly meet.

Petlevski’s language is rich but controlled, producing images that can feel mysterious while remaining remarkably clear. In poems such as “Smoke,” natural processes become metaphors for human beginnings, hope, confidence, and survival. A simple act—rubbing two pieces of wood together to make a fire—opens into a meditation on persistence and the fragile possibility of turning uncertainty into light.

The collection also reflects Petlevski’s distinctive place in Croatian literature. Poetry International has described her work as standing apart from the mainstream, emphasizing the unusual combination of exploratory ambition and highly readable poetic structures. This balance gives her poems both intellectual density and visual fluidity.

Sibila Petlevski is the author of twenty-three books spanning fiction, nonfiction, drama, and poetry. She is a member of l’Académie Européenne de Poésie and International PEN, where she served two terms on the International PEN Board. Her numerous distinctions include the Vladimir Nazor Annual National Prize for Literature and Arts, the Poeteka International Poetry Prize, and international recognition for her drama Eisgeneral. In 2024, the Croatian edition of Soiled With Earth, Drunk On Air received the Sabol Award for the best book in the Croatian language.

For readers interested in contemporary poetry, nature writing, ecological literature, spirituality, environmental poetry, and experimental approaches to the relationship between humanity and the natural world, Soiled With Earth, Drunk On Air offers a poetic experience that is intimate, atmospheric, and deeply attentive to the living world.