Gabriela Manova
Gabriela Manova was born and lives in Sofia. She is a writer, editor and translator. Her work has been published in Kultura, Literaturen Vestnik, Ah, Maria, Stranitsa, Krustoput, Nula 32 and others.
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Her debut poetry collection Navitsi (Habits) was nominated for the Ivan Nikolov prize in 2021. She translates from and into English. In 2023 she was selected for a translator’s residency at the National Writing Centre in Norwich. In 2024, she was one of the translators at the International Poetry Conference in Koprivshtitsa, organised by the Elizabeth Kostova Foundation.
ГЛАСЪТ НА АВТОРА
Поезията е:
Едновременно много нужна и съвсем безполезна.
Какъв е животът на твоята поезия (как се ражда, как порасва, как съзрява, как умира)?
Ражда се като усещане, образ или дума, които дълго въртя в ума си. Някои неща умират там. Други решават да излязат – но как и защо, все още не зная.
Изкуството свързано ли е с политиката и проблемите на нашето време? Кои проблеми те гнетят?
Гнетят ме малодушието, несправедливостта и злото. Поезията може да изрази това – но не непременно. Не съм почитател на самоцелното писане по тема, нито на импулса човек да се изкаже по всеки въпрос. Ценно е да осъзнаваме, че има неща, които не разбираме; и болката на другите не бива да е упражнение по творческо писане.
Какво искаш да остане след думите?
Луксът да помълчим.
Къде отиват ненаписаните истории?
Чакат реда си.
The album
We no longer arrange photos in albums, we’re not bothered
about how sharply we’ve come out,
whether we blinked or the image is blurred.
Everything can be repeated, corrected.
But your photos are old. When they were snapped,
it was more important to have a shot, not what it was of exactly.
And when the image’s not completely in focus that’s because
someone laughed while it was being taken
or just that life shone more brightly and strayed
beyond its bounds. Here you’ve climbed a pole, there – you’re on the beach.
Here you’re saying cheers, there – we look much alike.
Here you’re painfully young, younger than I am now, and I know
that one day I’ll pass the age at which you remained forever.
I arrange your photos in an album so I can get to them quickly
when I want to remember your face,
even though there’s no need – it’s my face too.
In the last photo in the album they’re waving off a soldier.
The last photo in the album is always some kind of promise –
I imagine you’ve gone away somewhere. And life goes on.
Teeth
Let me tear you apart! But how?
With these beautiful teeth.
Let me get drunk on your blood.
Then how can I leave?
I’m writing to you from my former body,
only it still wants retribution,
only in you I see, as in a mirror,
how good things are for me
in this life where my teeth
stay with me till death.
Yes, my smile’s tucked away,
but no one inside me is hungry.
Table
Nobody sits down at it nor lays the table. They don’t have dinner as a family. And there’s nothing dramatic in that, just facts and different stomachs, and what’s the big deal in the end, besides eating together other common family things are lacking. OK, for the subject it is. You grow up and nothing matters until you find yourself among people who do these things, and not only at Christmas, and you begin to draw back and waver: But I’m like this, but it’s like that, but I didn’t grow up this way, well, these aren’t my customs, but can’t I eat later, and actually what you mean is:
Please, let me get up from the table. I just don’t know how to behave in such a good family.
Silver
Maybe I don’t want to go back where
the mountain seemed to just have been born
and the world breathed anew, and time
stopped when I dropped my silver watch
on the floor of that room where we told ourselves
we could stay forever. You shone,
bathed in the rays passing through
the translucent brand new world
where someone had just invented us.
The treasure we dreamt of lies buried there.
What is poetry?
Both very necessary and completely useless.
СВЪРЗАНИ АВТОРИ
Manova