Katerina Stoykova-Klemer interviewed poetry and prose writer Krasimir Vardyev for The Season of Delicate Hunger: Anthology of Contemporary Bulgarian Poetry. Here is a translation of that conversation.
What would you like for the American readers to know about Bulgarian poetry?
That it is not all that different. Here, too, people get born, get together, separate, die. Life is complex, multidimensional and has nothing in common with the news. Similar things excite us, and things happen for similar reasons. Our poetry is good, just the language puts us into narrow cultural frames.
What would you like for the American readers to know about you personally?
Thirty five years old. I live in a small house in the woods outside the city of Shumen together with two feral Siamese cats – Genghis and Arsenya. Happy or unhappy, as the case may be. And yes – gay.
Besides Penelope
I, circe
thirty-two years old
mythologically muddled
at least discovered
I’m not immortal
I lie awaiting
the eternal returning
the cycles of bliss
I smoke in bed
plowing
the blue sheets
my hand is a ship
I read seferis
and next to me
meekly snores
yet another pig
for a long time now
I haven’t enjoyed
loneliness-Krasimir Vardyev,
translated from Bulgarian
by Katerina Stoykova-Klemer
Is there an American poet who has influenced you or has made an impression on you? How do you interact with American poetry?
Bukowski, Brodsky. The American novelists, however, are those who have built my worldview (and also me as a person and as an author) – Mark Twain, Vonnegut, and from the contemporaries – Andrew Sean Greer. I read in original, as well, but my introduction to American poetry happened thanks to wonderful translations, of course.
What forms of cultural exchange between Bulgaria and the U.S. would you find interesting, practical and helpful?
To translate living American poets into Bulgarian! This is a good start.
What do you wish for the anthology and its readers?
Wonderful moments. Enriching experience. Creative contemplation. And a woman president.
More from Accents Publishing’s “Meet a Bulgarian Poet” series:
Krasimir Vardyev was born on May 17th, 1978 in Beloslav. He holds a degree from Kontantin Preslavsky University of Shumen. He has received awards for his poetry and prose, among which is the Southern Spring Award for his debut poetry collection, Curb, in 2001. From 1998 to 2003, he was a co-organizer and participant in the “Street Poetry” campaign. His second poetry book, Symbiosis, was published in 2007. Krasimir lives and works in Sofia.