Zlatina Dimitrova
Zlatina Dimitrova graduated in Media and Journalism from the University of National and World Economy, followed by Literature, Cinema, and Visual Culture from Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski. She holds a PhD in Film Studies and has been working as a journalist for nearly 15 years.
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She has won awards from the ‘Boyan Penev’ and ‘Veselin Hanchev’ literary competitions. Her poems have been published in Literary Newspaper, Ah, Maria, Crossroads (Krastopat), and Open Literature (Otvorena Literatura).
‘Elephant Cemetery (A Small Book of Remembrance)’ (Grobishte za Slonove) (Ars, 2021) is her debut poetry collection.
THE AUTHOR’S VOICE
Поезията е:
сън, в който няма горе и долу, и всичко е правилно.
Какъв е животът на твоята поезия (как се ражда, как порасва, как съзрява, как умира)?
Животът на поезията ми е хаотичен. Ражда се винаги в търсене на химикалка наоколо, пораства като файл в черновите на имейла, съзрява там за шест месеца, преди да се покаже пред света или да загине безславно. Някои стихотворения умират при първия прочит, а други заживяват отново с всеки следващ.
Изкуството свързано ли е с политиката и проблемите на нашето време? Кои проблеми те гнетят?
Изкуството винаги е свързано с политиката и проблемите на своето време дори да не ги адресира конкретно и поименно. Няма как да съществува извън времето си, независимо дали го отрича, осмисля, обяснява, оправдава или изпълва с нови идеи. Гнети ме това, че докато дълбините на Земята и човека, и висините на космоса и съзнанието са свободни за изследване, човечеството влага енергия и пари във войни и унищожение.
Какво искаш да остане след думите?
Ускорен пулс или поне един пропуснат удар на сърцето.
Къде отиват ненаписаните истории?
Летят из споделеното пространство, в което пътуват идеите, докато някой друг – с химикалка под ръка, търпение и повече уважение към тях, не седне да ги запише, за да заживеят гордо сред написаните.
That Season
Of all the places I have left,
I most vividly remember those where I wanted to stay.
I take it as a lesson I go over
until I understand the meaning of each word.
Last night I dreamed of my grandmother in that very room.
She was holding a photo of my grandfather and so alone.
My mother, my daughter, and I stayed with her—
each of us nestled in the other across generations.
Then the room disappeared, and I so clearly remember
the door to the terrace and the linden tree across.
Scents unlock memories,
not asking if that was the room you wanted to enter.
Translated by Elitsa Chotrova
Don't wake us up / Who is dreaming
We are not asleep, we are dreaming with our eyes open –
don’t wake us up, let us gawk at the void,
at the stars and the darkness of the stars –
like a herd of hungry, emaciated mice,
searching for crumbs on the floor of the universe.
Don’t wake us up neither today, nor tomorrow,
with our eyes open we dream of the world,
we dream nightmares about the world with our eyes open:
roads and streets explode from the screen,
our hands fly towards each other from the screen.
This is how rabbits protect each other – keeping one eye on the predator,
while the other dreams of pastures.
Neither today nor tomorrow do we want to get up,
let sleep keep us so – semi-conscious,
in a semi-unclear state where
anxiety and dreams blend in,
and everything is equally plausible,
yet not necessarily happening.
Don’t wake us up. Dreams are subject to interpretation:
If you dream of a bird,
if you dream of a room full of items,
if you dream of a lake
where you swim or drown your fears…
To wake us up means to leave us without interpretation—
without the possibility of ever truly opening our eyes,
knowing where we are going, knowing why and how we came to be.
Translated by Elitsa Chotrova
Absurdity with a Touch of Fear
There is some irony in the fact that
we don’t let our children play with weapons,
while children die from weapons all around.
My son asks what if
they make him a soldier when he grows up.
We’ll protest, I reply.
It’s a good thing there are no more wars, Mom.
Did you know that people died
when there were wars?
He was gifted a gun and he cried a lot
when I didn’t let him play with it.
He promised that if he got a second one, he would give it away—
if you have two guns, give one to your neighbor.
There is a certain irony in this—
in his world there are no wars,
and guns make a noise when you pull the trigger;
in mine, I tell lies
so I don’t have to hear the bullets.
Translated by Elitsa Chotrova
A Dream
In their own bed, everyone have their own lives,
have their own conversations
For instance, I ask of my dead grandmother
not to take my son on a trip
She says, “There’s no one to babysit him, you’re always at work!”
My son calls from the nursery to fetch him water
He falls asleep, muttering about “our old grandfather.”
“What grandfather?” I ask him, and get a steady reply
from a sparrow’s feathers wind.
In the morning, he tells me that every night he dreams
the same dream,
but never reaches the end of it.
My husband covers his sleep with plastic sheets (so he doesn’t get wet),
and then turns the other way.
Then the whole house goes quiet,
until the birds speak again,
with that key in their beaks,
which sets us free of our nocturnal cages.
Translated by Elitsa Chotrova
The fish in the Osam River
turning their white bellies up.
A morse code repetition:
“‘Don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me!'”
The wind softly sweeping the scales,
touching each one in turn,
softly counting their worries.
The tree, stretching branches to the water,
converts into a ladder:
for the fish to foat up,
for the wind to sink down.
Stretching our gazes from the side,
we become branches, and fish, and wind.
Translated by Elitsa Chotrova
What is poetry?
A dream where up and down cease to exist, and all is as it should be.
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Dimitrova