Nothing will be knocked down,
the houses will stay,
the streets will stay,
the cherry tree in the yard will stay.
Only we won’t be here.
That was the lesson
about the neutron bomb.
I’ve known since then,
death is a cherry,
ripening without me.
–Georgi Gospodinov,
translated from the Bulgarian
by Katerina Stoykova-Klemer
The Season of Delicate Hunger:
Anthology of Contemporary Bulgarian Poetry
(Accents Publishing)
That’s how I lost sleep
in the calmest of capitals.
–Georgi Gospodinov,
translated from the Bulgarian
by Katerina Stoykova-Klemer
The Season of Delicate Hunger:
Anthology of Contemporary Bulgarian Poetry
(Accents Publishing)
Artist Kurt Gohde reads “Time is a Neutron Bomb” by Georgi Gospodinov. This poem was translated by Katerina Stoykova-Klemer.
Clip from the North American premiere of The Season of Delicate Hunger: Anthology of Contemporary Bulgarian Poetry (Accents Publishing).
She closes the newspaper and says:
did you read, in Iowa
it hailed—chunks
the size of a golf ball.
That, I say, is because
they go overboard with golf there,
they’ve lost many balls
which are now coming back,
He returns the balls,
you understand, that jokester.
But she doesn’t laugh,
turns around and says horrified:
He always hits the mark.
–Georgi Gospodinov,