Guest editor Clint Margrave introduces readers of English to an eclectic mix of poets, both established and emerging, who are defining the Bulgarian literary scene right now. Check back daily throughout November for new poetry from Bulgaria.
Guest editor Clint Margrave introduces readers of English to an eclectic mix of poets, both established and emerging, who are defining the Bulgarian literary scene right now. Check back daily throughout November for new poetry from Bulgaria.
Poet and translator Tom Phillips offers a guide to contemporary Bulgarian poetry in translation
Drew Rollins and James Peake review four new books of contemporary Bulgarian poetry in translation. Edited by Clint Margrave.
“From now until the end of time, / I’ll sing this song — so listen, listen: / between my wings it’s, oh, so empty”
“You think / partings are simple– / one gets on the train / the other lies down on the tracks”
“My damp words fall to the floor, / lifeless and unwanted, / where they sizzle on the smoldering / embers of her grammar”
“Behind his back he hears a sound he expected: / the footsteps he remembers from a distant past”
“Not a pocket, but a little window, inward, backward, don’t look,/ child, such terrible things happened there…”
“I am used to dying, / and waking up — a new woman, / with no name, no past, / only the taste of blood in my mouth.”
“people drink sweet coffee at the market / listening to wistful Sevdalinka songs /and just like me leave the house / with a phone in their pocket / instead of a gun”
“And look, those books on the shelf / have really turned their backs on us”
“I come out / of the cathedral with dirty hands. / I touched all the marble / to see if it / was real or painted”
“I leant over the well / and asked the water./ ‘Why am I here?’ / ‘Come down, I’ll tell you,’ it replied. “
He looks around for / a fire, a tragedy, police, / so early on a Monday morning / when the world seems / a brittle and fragile place.
God this poetry’s made me so horny / it’s made me forget my own existence
A monster is never something from the future / despite the lingering fear you might become one.
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