Scars / Белези. Poems by Blaga Dimitrova (избрана поезия от Блага Димитрова в издание на английски език)

Poems by Blaga Dimitrova - selected and translated in English by Ludmilla G. Popova-Wightman

“Your poems. Are they difficult?” She smiled and, unaccustomed to speaking English, answered carefully, drawing a line in the air with two delicately pinched fingers holding an imaginary pen: “They are difficult-to write.” He laughed, startled and charmed. “But not to read?”

She seemed puzzled by his laugh, but did not withdraw her smile, though its corners deepened in a defensive, feminine way. “I think,” she said, “not so very.”

- John Updike

“Blaga Dimitrova can turn thought into poetry, meditation into rhythm and flavor, colors into ideas, judgement into fragrance, vision into ethical statement. Seldom has a woman's writing been at once more cerebral and more sensual. This mixture comes no doubt like visions brought on by a wound, personal and national. It is the “Black Sea” - what chaos, what revolution, what historical upheaval? Dimitrova's poetry nonetheless stretches a modest and serene smile over the abyss. The memory of this smile has stayed with me, and it is once again there in her style, sustained through adversity; a sun rising over the Black Sea. the sun of a woman's talent, one that English-speaking readers will welcome.”

- Julia Kristeva

***

I will go.

And the space I sed to take

will be filled with air -

a liberation -

invisible and spacious.

A silent presence,

from which someone else,

unconsciously,

will take a big breath.