Children’s and youth poetry of Barbara Gregorič Gorenc

Contemporary Slovenian children’s poetry introduces a new perspective on child and childhood which is contrary to the traditional stereotypes and simplified perspectives on child as the subject of upbringing. Children are not acquainted with exemplary children’s characters anymore as it was the case in traditional, above all post-war poetry. However, representatives of contemporary children’s poetry empathise with children and support them even if they are rebellious, rude or rowdy. In addition to this somehow rebellious position which established itself in the Slovenian literature after 1990, authors, nowadays, also deal with once-taboo topics such as sexuality, pain, death, etc. One of the representatives of this contemporary Slovenian children’s poetry – which goes beyond traditional frameworks even in terms of language – is Barbara Gregorič Gorenc. In this thesis, the life and work of Barbara Gregorič Gorenc and the interview I conducted with her are presented. Following it, I defined the concepts of children’s literature, poetry and contemporary children’s poetry and provided a description of three types of Slovenian children’s poetry and the perspectives that are found in children’s literature. The most extensive chapter of the thesis is an analysis of the collections of poems of Barbara Gregorič Gorenc. In this analysis, I was, above all, interested in the most common topics of her poems, in the lyrical subject and the prevailing perspective – her perception of childhood. In addition, I also considered the recipient’s openness, language and form of her poems and took a look on reviews about her work. The last chapter of the thesis features three examples of the interpretation of one of her poems in the fifth grade of primary school