He disappeared from the historical record in the prison at Teharje. He was most likely murdered in the post-war massacres at the Teharje camp or Kočevje Rog. However, it was also rumored among the Home Guard that he had escaped from prison back to Carinthia, was returning to Yugoslavia to rescue his comrades, and was killed in one such action. Literary work Hribovšek's creative period was brief, and so very little of his material remains. In addition, he destroyed his poetry drafts himself. The key material is his letters and poetry manuscripts, which he turned over almost entirely to Anica Resman, his friend and lover. He published only three poems during his lifetime: the poem "Kanal" (later renamed "Rast") in 1939 in the last issue of Domače vaje, and two poems in 1940 in Dejanje: "Ura" and "Rast." In 1944, just before he joined the army, Hribovšek collected his poems and edited the manuscript poetry collection Pesmi Marjana Gostiše, maja 1944. He gave the manuscript to Anica Resman, who managed to protect it from destruction or confiscation. In 1965, Resman sent the manuscript of the collection to Hribovšek's sister in Argentina, and Tine Debeljak published it under the title Pesem naj zapojem. In Slovenia, like other emigrant literature, it was on the index of banned works and therefore difficult to access. At the end of the 1960s, Jože Javoršek, who had helped him publish poems in Dejanje before the war, sought permission from Hribovšek's relatives to print his poems, but they were afraid "that they would not present Ivan as he was," and, because "in Slovenia the conditions for reprinting his poems have not yet developed," they were not in favor of it. In 1970, Hribovšek was included in the anthology of Slovenian poetryŽivi Orfej. In 1990, his collection Pesmi was published in Slovenia. In 1994, the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts held the Balantičev–Hribovšek Symposium, which also highlighted the banned poet France Balantič. In 2010, Hribovšek was accepted as a canonical poet in the collection Zbrana dela slovenskih pesnikov in pisateljev (Collected Works of Slovenian Poets and Writers). His poetry was influenced by the Slovenian poetic tradition (Jenko, Kette, and Kocbek), Hölderlin, and Rilke. In his writing, he also made references to ancient lyric poetry. His collection consists of 42 poems and two translations. In the first part, he collected poems about experiencing the spiritual dimension of nature,