Georgi Gavrilov
Georgi Gavrilov was born on 15 June 1991 in Sofia. He graduated with a master’s degree in nuclear and elementary particle physics from Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski. He’s the author of four poetry collections: Koraben dnevnik na knizhnata lodka (Ship’s log of the paper boat), Pieta, Sinite chasove (The blue hours) and Posledniyat Buenos Aires (The Last Buenos Aires).
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His poems have been translated into Turkish, Arabic, Bengali, Spanish, French, German, English, Romanian, Croatian, Vietnamese, Belarusian and Montenegrin.
Main awards: The More national poetry competition 2014, Bronze Pegasus (grand prize) in the Southern Spring competition for a literary debut 2016 (for Ship’s log of the paper boat), the Union of Bulgarian Writers’ special prize in the national Hristo Fotev competition 2016 (for Ship’s log of the paper boat), first place in the World’s End national literary competition for poetry and prose 2019.
Georgi Gavrilov is one of the founders of the literary and cultural spaces Hralupata (The Den) and Svetofar (Lighthouse). He runs Scribens publishing house.
THE AUTHOR’S VOICE
Поезията е:
Ако някой даде точно определение за поезията, вероятно това ще я бюрократизира, нека сърцето ѝ остане неясно.
Какъв е животът на твоята поезия (как се ражда, как порасва, как съзрява, как умира)?
Ражда се обикновено в малките часове, когато мозъкът ми обработва умората и дните, пораства при редакцията – този тежък тийнейджърски период, съзрява, когато бъде включена в книга. Дали умира не знам, дано ме надживее.
Изкуството свързано ли е с политиката и проблемите на нашето време? Кои проблеми те гнетят?
За мен – да. Ако не е политическо, изкуството губи част от смисъла си. В последните години не страдаме от липса на глобални проблеми, които би трябвало да вълнуват и гнетят всички ни.
Какво искаш да остане след думите?
Нещо по-добро от тях, те винаги лъжат, дори и несъзнателно, просто такъв е форматът на езика.
Къде отиват ненаписаните истории?
Никъде, остават си у човека. В това има доза романтика, нещо интимно, може би най-интимното.
always the same wound
opened again and again
to bleed
for this world
in seven days created
and destroyed in an instant
eight million words
hurled into the empty cosmos
with theories, monkeys and the big bang
but the bangs here are bigger
the conspiracies bigger
and the monkeys are disappearing
God wasn’t fit to be a teacher
and nor were we to be students
Jesus wasn’t fit for meat
nor the apostles for his salvation
metallic cheers
cut through the air
one and the same wound
in Able’s skull
on which we carve the names of our children
with dirty nails
and unwashed hands
you can’t sniff out
his babylike head
but his blood
old as spring rain
is fragrant in our sweat
passed down through millennia
sweet as new-mown hay
sour as wine
turned to vinegar
and because it doesn’t taste good
we’ll salt this wound too
Translated by Tom Phillips
white
the world has no flag
whatever we draw
blood has no nation
and outside the body
it only flows downwards
taking with it
philosophies
and ideas and uprisings
territories will be overrun
only by grass after us
while your bones and mine
ever more quietly rattle
Mozart and Beethoven
in their safest bunker
it’s 3 in the morning
and we can’t handle the inflation of news
nobody understands why nobody understands
gradually the stars go out
one by one the gods are dying
and all beliefs
are now only on paper
we find ourselves alone
on the abandoned airfield
amid a universe cold as dinner
nobody will help
nobody watches any more
you don’t place bets
when someone plays alone against themselves
we listen to the tectonic gramophone records
but the screams are not music
and nor is the pain a feeling
the pain is pain
and needs no other name
like the world needs no flag
and blood isn’t necessarily
dye
organisms will appear
to feed on our plastic
creatures will appear
to recover from radiation
new species will appear
to inhabit our leavings
and they will seek traces
of the disaster
which destroyed us
they will seek
and they will seek
and will seek
Translated by Tom Phillips
the last buenos aires
the melon light
sweetened our faces
and the flies gathered as around the dead
we violated it
with the furious lighting of cigarettes
occupying the wooden benches
blackened by damp in the booths
sweat streamed from the top of our brows
and soaked through linen pores
with the back of our hands we sought
evidence of a word
or a few
more important than those in the papers
for a moment that was enough
and we knew it so well
it wasn’t right to say it
now I recall it with the mind
of the entire human race
seeing the blueprint in every mandylion
the first garden dug
in gethsemane
the first love fully formed
in judas
the first person shipwrecked
in any one of us
Jesus hangs on our chests and no longer says a thing
maybe that’s evolution
from the radio in a small quiet place
in which I recall the last Buenos Aires
without having known the first
it plays
and is beautiful
the strange recollection
of solitude solis
and the melon light
sweetening my face again
while it seeks yours with the flies
like reading the paper
maybe it’s good we’re growing old
and parts of things seem absurd
the hope of you appearing round a corner
without changing a thing
with any movement or motion
because the divine won’t intervene
the hope we will speak
about small things like flowers and beija-flor
details of a life that’s already been
one way or another overcome
the hope of the century’s
endless drunken afternoons
while surrounded by darkness
the sun lights up the last buenos aires
and with us it is just as lonely
as we are without it
Translated by Tom Phillips
What is poetry?
If someone were to give a precise definition of poetry, it would probably bureaucratize it; let its heart remain obscure.
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