Ivan S. Valev
Ivan S. Valev was born in 1984 in Sandanski. Publications of his have appeared in: Literaturen Vestnik (Literary Newspaper), Zhenata Dnes (Women Today) magazine, and in a number of online editions: Krastopat (Crossroads), Literary Club, Public Republic, Dictum, High View Art, Otkrita Literatura (Open Literature), Almanac Burgas, Savremenik (Contemporary) magazine, Sea, etc. Works of his have been included in several anthologies: Razlichna Tishina (Different Silence), Sartzeto na Bulgaria, (The Heart of Bulgaria), Poeziya Sreshtu Voinata (Poetry Against War), and Devet Poeti (9 Poets).
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He is a laureate of various forums, such as the Petko and Pencho Slaveykov competition in Tryavna and the poetry competition marking the 130th anniversary of the birth of Sirak Skitnik.
His first book, ‘Turn’ (‘Zavoy’), received the Pegasus Grand Prize for Poetry at the 46th Southern Spring National Competition for Debut Literature, (‘Yuzhna Prolet’), in 2018, and was nominated in the Debut section of the 4th annual awards of Peroto Literary Club and National Centre for Books.
His second poetry book, ‘Entering the City‘, Scribens (2023) was nominated in the ‘Poetry’ section of the 10th annual awards of Peroto Literary Club. In 2024, Ivan S. Valev was awarded the Konstantin Pavlov National Poetry Award for being ‘a fresh voice in Bulgarian poetry’.
THE AUTHOR’S VOICE
Поезията е:
когато думите успяват да настигнат честотата на сърцето, ускорението на краткия път към възвисяването.
Какъв е животът на твоята поезия (как се ражда, как порасва, как съзрява, как умира)?
Хубавото (и лошото) на моите текстове е, че веднъж споделени, те спират да ми принадлежат – те започват своя живот сред хората, а аз мога да се радвам или скърбя с тях, но нищо повече от това.
Изкуството свързано ли е с политиката и проблемите на нашето време? Кои проблеми те гнетят?
За мен по дефиниция изкуството е свързано с всичко, без значение от авторовите намерения. Така че отговорът е да, особено ако то успява в своята мисия на резонанс и възвисяване. Това, което ме гнети в момента е безразличието, глобалната липса на емпатия или по-лошо избирателната емпатия на фона на информационния излишък на времето.
Какво искаш да остане след думите?
По-различни хора.
Къде отиват ненаписаните истории?
В чистилището на авторовия ум.
The end of night
is the province of time –
obituaries take over posters
and colours soften.
In the square, the clock
still shows the accurate time,
though lagging
by twenty-five years behind.
There, footsteps are a sole
semblance of the beating of a heart –
clouds over a sunrise,
illuminated one last time.
Translated by Elitsa Chotrova
A Walk
When you and I
remain alone,
the horizon melts
like oil on a canvas
from the Renaissance.
When you and I
remain alone,
we’re short of air
to say
it all.
When you and I
remain alone,
we walk
for days,
without us even
stepping away.
And should you ask the rest,
who here remain
they’d simply say – a bird
whuch
still circles
the stump,
cut down
with its home.
Translated by Elitsa Chotrova
Fear
Subject to habit
yet so suddenly,
birds fly away
over fields
forever.
You don’t see them off
with the bark you’ve forgotten
since you’ve been searching
for your favorite marks
under your heart.
An anxiety
has recently
been haunting you,
but it is not
the instinct
you have turned your back on,
but something greater –
that inevitable
mortality
amid the wilderness
in the fog,
which
flies away with the birds.
Translated by Elitsa Chotrova
A Letter in a bottle
I didn’t read it,
it wasn’t written
by the father in me,
who waves,
bids farewell,
(at that he is
best!),
shrinks
between the waves
of the tablecloths,
the eternal captain of
the napkin ships –
a shipwreck survivor,
who never saw the sea
Translated by Elitsa Chotrova
The Sea Offering
stifled the sturgeon smothers,
the sea sighs –
night gushes out the eyes,
chill rushes in the mouth,
the sea sighs –
bodies huddled in a boat,
waving a dumb farewell,
children? No, the waves –
muffled they slap their wings,
the sea sighs –
I want none of your offering,
I will accept everything
of your surpluss.
Translated by Elitsa Chotrova
Gospel
(Purgatory II)
When my time has come,
I Pray to You,
don’t take me
down there,
I know what I deserve,
but how could I burn well?
Only smoke
and no heat –
I’ve been that useless piece of wood
in the damp corner
for so long
When my time has come,
I Pray to You,
make me
into a matchstick
(I will protect myself from the cold
I will protect myself from the damp, I vow),
I will wait patiently,
I will put all my strength
into that brief moment
of flash –
at least for a moment
let there be
light.
Translated by Elitsa Chotrova
What is poetry?
When words succeed in matching the heartbeat’s rhythm, the quickening pace on the way to transcendence.
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S. Valev