Guess Who?* (I)
Mr. L in Athens
Mr. L., has never been married
He likes uzo in the morning
And makes La Gioconda sketches repeatedly
He likes the idea of museums except
The forever white. And he doesn’t look
Directly to the eyes of young boys
Mr. L lives near to the Omonia square, far from Florence
.
In the balcony of a geometrically defined silence
He hosts his ghost quests from youth
But none of them stays overnight
Betrayal is one sided, he writes into his notebook
.
He sometimes thinks of his first painting lessons
Before fame, arrogance and craving
Now, in Athens, with a fishing line in his hand
Just at the well of eternity
He finds eternity is nonsense
.
A white handsome young boy passes by
He holds his head down
.
And prefers to watch his own liquid memory
Betrayal is two sided like the surface of water
Mr L. doesn’t write this into his notebook
Katerina Illipoulou or Efe Duyan
* "Guess Who" texts are a series of poems which have been written during Crear Workshop, in Scotland. They can be considered as a game among the Wordexpress writers, so that one poet tries to imitate the style, themes and way of thinking of another poet. On the other hand, those poems indicate a significant outcome of poetry translation process (in Crear) during which the writers tried to get into the other's world- and, in fact, a clear sign of that they did it.
News
'I like to use the languages of the various arts – literature, music, theatre...I think that is the spirit of the modern global era.'- poet Ivan Hristov spoke to SJ Fowler of 3AM magazine about the evolution of the contemporary Bulgarian poetry scene.
Cosmin Borza discusses the work of Romania's 'Generation 2000' poets, including Radu Vancu and Claudiu Komartin in an essay at Asymptote.
At the Sofia Poetics festival, which was organised by Word Express participant Ivan Hristov, Scottish based poet Ryan Van Winkle caught up with fellow festival guests SJ Fowler and Tomasz Rózycki. To hear Fowler and Rózycki discussing their work and reading some of their poetry, listen to the Scottish Poetry Library podcast here.
