Creative Spurt By now the moon has shrunk back to a dark comma in the sky, and I have stopped writing. Two weeks of rubbing pen and paper like a cicada its front legs, and erupting in some language I no longer use for thinking. They say the tongue you become a poet in is … Continue reading Katerina Stoykova: Creative Spurt

Stony coke You think, that under the earth there, that we can become worthy. Working out of the companies, we’ll gather enough money, until wife and kids appear. And you think: how straightforward, a black sun shines from the height, and from below naturally intrepid shining ores open eyes up wide like a man rising … Continue reading Ani Ilkov: Stony Coke

PICKING LONELINESS just like mushrooms loneliness too has a double poisonous and edible loneliness one bows to you with its red hat the other watches you smiling with polka dots by its blue blood you’ll recognize which one counts your hours Stoyanka Grudova Translation: Katerina Stoykova from the anthology Season of Delicate Hunger (ed. Katerina … Continue reading Stoyanka Grudova: Picking Loneliness

Better                 for Toni The time I left my best friend behind was a time of hope for something better than a best friend, was a time of hope for true love, was a time of hope for a better life, better than a best friend, better than her true love, better than a life … Continue reading Katerina Stoykova: Better

Unfortunately, Danila Stoianova didn't have much time to fully develop her talent as a poet. She died 1984 at the young age of 23 after a long battle with leukemia. This, and a series of deaths in her family left a deep mark on her and one can not read her poems without thinking of … Continue reading Bulgarian Poetry in English Translation III/3: the period 1944-1989 – Danila Stoianova

At the grave of Penyo Penev* I stood in front of the unfinished block, which marks the end of the town. From the one time hill under my feet I just remember the strong wind of dusk - unused to the new echo, it attempts it over again in a cave of concrete, where the … Continue reading Zlatomir Zlatanov: At the grave of Penyo Penev

In John Updike’s short story “The Bulgarian Poetess” the narrator reports the following short dialogue with the eponymous Bulgarian Poetess: "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, … Continue reading Bulgarian Poetry in English Translation (III/2): the period 1944-1989 – Blaga Dimitrova

Konstantin Pavlov was one of the most important and gifted Bulgarian poets of the period after 1944. His immense talent and poetic imagination, and his independent personality brought him in frequent conflict with the Communist regime. Fortunately, two of his poetry collections are available in English: Cry of a Former Dog (translated by Ludmilla G. … Continue reading Bulgarian Poetry in English Translation (III/1): the period 1944-1989 – Konstantin Pavlov

Poetry is very popular in Bulgaria; I am still very much surprised about the sheer amount of new poetry collections that are published on the small Bulgarian market every year by „regular” publishers, but also by authors themselves (self-published, or “Samizdat” as they say in Bulgaria – an expression that hints at the subversive tradition … Continue reading Bulgarian Poetry in English Translation: Some Anthologies – an overview by Thomas Hübner