Sibila Aleksova
Sibila Aleksova was born in 1984 in the town of Pernik, where she graduated from high school with a focus on French. She studied Arabic Studies at Sofia University and Literary Creativity at the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute in Moscow.
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She is the author of three poetry collections: Grounding the Lightnings (2007, Plamak Publishing House), An Eye for Happiness (2013, Plamak Publishing House), and A “Room for Wings (2025, Janet 45 Publishing House) won the National Poetry Award “Ivan Nikolov” in 2026. She currently resides in Germany.
THE AUTHOR’S VOICE
Поезията е:
Напоследък видях, чух, прочетох (видях в тревата, чух от децата си, прочетох в роман…) толкова много поезия!
Толкова много магия.
Не искам да развалям магията.
Какъв е животът на твоята поезия (как се ражда, как порасва, как съзрява, как умира)?
Тръгва като изтеглена от тъканта на всекидневието нишка.
Не ми дава мира.
Дърпам, нищя, намотавам – някой път с десетилетия.
Щом кълбото порасне повече от мен, го оставям.
Изкуството свързано ли е с политиката и проблемите на нашето време? Кои проблеми те гнетят?
Колкото повече ми се налага да съм здраво стъпила в днешния ден, толкова ми е по-трудно да пиша.
Тъкмо сега границите между добро и зло, реално и нереално така са се размили, че не знам как ще успея да имам хем вечност, на която да се опра, хем памет, от която да се уча, хем да съм дете – да поглеждам света като за първи път, без предразсъдъци.
Какво искаш да остане след думите?
Богат и дълъг послевкус.
Къде отиват ненаписаните истории?
Убиват ми под възглавницата.
WHITE GROVE, BLACK FALCON
You are so fair, peregrine –
so fierce and so fair.
How the rugged scent
of the hawthorn fills the air.
I once bloomed out of nothing,
out of twigs the weaver wove.
I was one with the black falcon.
I was one with the white grove.
All eternity was mine
to watch a wet stamen’s curve.
I could hear seedlings whisper
inside the swollen earth.
Now I have a home and this
secret world seems so remote.
How the rough hawthorn scent
is scratching at my throat.
How you’re flying, peregrine,
just sweeping ahead.
Now you’re dark, now mottled,
now you’re rusty red.
Your shadow cuts clean
across the bare hill.
I am the white grove.
I am the peregrine.
Translated by Rosalia Ignatova
AFTER THE FLOOD
No more rain, just something black
up there keeps twisting its threads.
The lamb we slaughtered yesterday
moves across the sky.
It pressed its little hornless head
into our hands, waiting to be petted.
Its meek nature of a male lamb
served us very well.
Moved by some ancient bloodthirst,
we then ate and drank our fill.
And that bitter blood won’t soak into the earth—
it just will not soak in.
Mud runs along the road, and in the cellars,
frogs and carp are breeding.
From the taps, as if from a deep wound,
red mud keeps dripping.
They who have lost their land, a house, a dear friend
look down, let out a mournful cry.
They who have lost it all to water
stare at the sky.
Translated by Rosalia Ignatova
AN AFTERNOON
Life nods in the shade where nettles grow.
In a fish-stained bag, five flies hum and drone.
The bladder of the afternoon is hissing away
as in the stone trough, the water’s cord unspools.
A fish scale in the trough is a bright jewel.
It smells of stone and newspaper ink.
Of a crossword, halfway done.
(The solver’s dozing off upstairs,
indulging in a well-earned cool respite.)
The year’s going down its steep descent,
relentless on its downward road.
The planets of the grape are filling —
clear in the sun, they streak with color.
Wasps are feasting on their early sugar,
sating this ancient hunger of females.
On the hot tiles by the shed,
a tin tub’s standing in the sun.
Beneath the blue sky,
in sun-warmed water,
they’ll soon be bathing
a young daughter.
That child is me. (My children’s skin
is not one of fish scales.
To them, this sun-warmed water is a treat,
a happy chance of this brief visit.
They’ve never bathed in a pond
that’s above their knees.)
Hissing somewhere, a forgotten tap
is washing away sharp grains of sand.
Translated by Rosalia Ignatova
THE SLAP
Spurred by a young boy’s reckless curiosity,
my son — as in a nightmare — rushed toward danger.
I leapt, struck dumb with fear, and without a word,
I slapped him — straight across his smile.
My palm sank softly
into still-wet clay.
And every holy child,
inside each expecting woman,
flinched like a startled fish
and stood still.
Translated by Rosalia Ignatova
SCHOOLGIRLS
Wind in their heads, streaks of straw-blond hair,
and ripening apples tucked deep inside baggy tops.
They don’t know how to pick their clothes.
Don’t know a thing about love and loss.
They’re awkwardly charming.
I can’t help staring at them,
as they’re humming a song out of tune,
as they’re eating their cherries and ice creams,
as they feel bored through their long afternoons,
as they laugh with delight at the weak ones,
their palms half-hiding their teeth —
they’re harmless.
They still make extra holes in their belts with an awl,
and chop off their hair with an axe.
They sit in the sun, looking lazy and calm,
one leg crossed over the other.
They lift a round knee,
with half-healed pale scars.
A current hums through their young muscles.
As a flame licks
raw twigs in the hearth, so the sky
rains down fire without ash.
Yet they’re consumed by the fire and flames
of another living hell.
A coal in the mattress—their private virginity.
A black fly in the solitude of the room—
a furious buzz, out of nowhere.
Books slide down from their hands.
So wildly their hearts are pounding
that the thighs of the curtains drift open.
Those silken locks draped down their backs.
This hair chopped off with an axe.
Translated by Rosalia Ignatova
What is poetry?
Lately I’ve seen, heard, read (seen in the grass, heard from my children, read in a novel…) so much poetry! So much magic. I don’t want to spoil the magic.
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Aleksova