Ars Poetica

 

 Ars Poetica

By Blaga Dimitrova

Translated by Ludmilla G. Popova-Wightman.

 

Write each of your poems

as if it were your last.

In this century, saturated with strontium,

charged with terrorism,

flying with supersonic speed,

death comes with terrifying suddenness.

Send each of your words

like a last letter before execution,

a call carved on a prison wall.

You have no right to lie,

no right to play pretty little games.

You simply won’t have time

to correct your mistakes.

Write each of your poems,

tersely, mercilessly,

with blood — as if it were your last. 

 

I love the Poems of Blaga. Blaga Dimitrova (1922–2003) was not only one of Bulgaria’s most loved and celebrated poet but also an important figure in her nation’s political life, becoming the first vice president of Bulgaria after the fall of the Communist government. This poem is from her book titled "Scars "translated by Ludmilla G. Popova-Wightman.

 

I love the sense of urgency and certitude that this poem conveys considering the times we live in. Ars Poetica is a term meaning "The Art of Poetry" or "On the Nature of Poetry"

 

Note: Bulgaria was partly affected by Chernobyl Disaster by fallout in April and May 1986, with the detection of radioactive iodine, strontium and caesium.

 

 

 

Lullaby for my mother

By Blaga Dimitrova

Translated by Ludmilla Popova-Wightman

In the evening I smooth her sheets
Covered with deep wrinkles.
Her hand,
withered by giving,
pulls mine towards the night.

Half-asleep, barely able to speak,
she says in a childish voice
so naturally,
“Mommy!”
I become my mother’s mother.

A cataclysm, a reversal
Of the earth’s axis—
the poles flip over.
What was I doing? I don’t have time
for philosophical musings.

I dry her impatiently—
A skill, I've learnt from her.
“Mommy” she whispers guiltily,
remembering her naughtiness.
Cold air blows in the window.

The heating pad. The glass. The pills
I adjust the lampshade.
“Mommy, don’t go away!
I am afraid of dark! “
Who is losing her mind, she or I?

Heavy with pain and fever, crying,
she waits for me to take her 
in my arms. Two orphans cuddle
in the winter cradle.
Which am I?

Wake me up early tomorrow!
I am afraid, I’ll oversleep!
Dear Lord, is there something
I have forgotten?
Who will be late, she or I?

Mommy, my child, sleep!
Lullaby,
my baby…

There is often a reversal of roles that takes place in life when parents age and previous relationships are reversed. Thus we find the famous Bulgarian poet Blaga Dimitrova eloquently writing in her "Lullaby for My Mother" of this poignant situation. 

I have been recently reading . "I Remain in Darkness" by the famous French Novelist Annie Ernaux , an extraordinary evocation of a grown daughter’s attachment to her mother, and of both women’s strength and resiliency. It recounts Annie’s attempts first to help her mother recover from Alzheimer’s disease, and then, when that proves futile, to bear witness to the older woman’s gradual decline and her own experience as a daughter losing a beloved parent. This poem somehow seems to complement that reversal of the roles I find in in Annie’s memoir.

ONLY IN MY DREAM

ONLY IN MY DREAM

By Blaga Dimitrova

Translated by Ludmilla G Popova-Wightman

A meeting, ardent and tender
A pocket full of two whispering hands.
The wind whistles by our branch
and pushes hard to separate us.
Pressed to each other, we make space for it
at our side. We search each other’s eyes
for the saviour moon, drowning in clouds.

Close to us a rodent hollows a tree trunk.

Love, when did you turn into hate?
Deep in the pocket, a clenched fist.
Snakes hiss in our grey hair..
Our deaf hands don’t speak to each other
our wolf eyes turn away..
And only in my dream sometimes emerges
a tender moon, drowning in clouds.

Didn’t the rodent reach the tree trunk’s heart?

The Bulgarian poet Blaga Dimitrova (1922-2003) is the most loved and celebrated poet of her country. Her poems are intimate, subdued, thoughtful and caring. They are at once cerebral and sensual. I loved the below poem that shows the flowering and decadence of love through beautiful imageries and apt symbols.

(From Scars : Poems by Blaga Dimitrova , Ivy Press)

BUTTERFLY ON A PIN
by Blaga Dimitrova

Translated by Ludmilla G.Popova-Wightman

You don’t know real loneliness
if you don’t know closeness.
The road to great solitude
passes through great love.
A measure of the immense
horizon of loneliness
is the embrace from which
You extricate yourself.
Imagine how many times
the narrow circle of this embrace
fits into the cosmic circle of loneliness.
you are impaled exactly in the center—

a live butterfly on a pin.
Wrench yourself out! try to fly
with the pin piercing your heart.
The space confronting you is boundless.
Freedom has the salty taste of sea
                        and solitude.

Blaga Dimitrova (1922–2003) was one of Bulgaria’s most loved and celebrated poets.Blaga’s poems are intimate, subdued, thoughtful and caring. Many of her poems dwell on the scars (having lived in the communist era) she has endured in life. I chose this poem as it is indicative of her sensibility and minimalist poetics. Behind every scar there is a story. But in her poems, it is rather implied than told. Maybe the censorship required her to adopt this mode. The above poem begins and ends with scar statements. Yet the poem is inspirational as we know there are many around us who try to 'fly with the pin piercing your heart'. I loved the economy of her words in describing it.

From Scars: Poems by Blaga Dimitrova

Deserts

 

Deserts

By Blaga Dimitrova

Translated by Heather McHugh

I was born for love--

to give and to receive it.

Yet my life has passed

almost without loving.

So I've learned forgiving:

even the deserts

I have crossed

I feel no scorn for.

I just ask them

with astonished eyes:

What gardens were you born for?

Blaga Dimitrova, born 1922,  was one of the most distinguished Bulgarian poets and memorable figures in Bulgaria's political and social life . She was vice president of her country in the first democratic government after the fall of communism. She is the author of more than 40 volumes of poetry, novels, plays, essays. She has won the Herder Prize and several others including the French Medal of Merit for Freedom. and  Bulgaria's highest state order of merit "Stara Planina".

The above poem is deeply affecting and philosophical in its meditation on the misfortune of leading a loveless life. The narrator is  not sulky about her fate . Rather she is ready to forgive and  asks with a sense of wonder -" What gardens were you born for?". She's talking here about her own life. The deserts present her with an external image that mirrors her own condition. Thus it suggests there is much potential in the world that goes unfulfilled. She does not scorn the deserts because she understands this: that barrenness is not necessarily an indication of intrinsic nature or character, but may be the result of bad luck or, if you will, fate. Where others see only deserts, she sees potential gardens that never had the chance to be gardens.

 Thus in a "forgiving sense" , she   (wistfully instead of scornfully) says to those who did not return love or nourish it, "Surely there could have been some flowerings you were meant for.."