Translator’s Note

Stoil Roshkev’s “Поетите не са това” is a poem that rattles, mocks, and sings. It’s an irreverent catalogue of what poets are not, and its wild cataloguing builds momentum through strings of phrases where sound often precedes sense: combinations of nouns and adjectives chosen less for rational semantic criteria than for shock value, alliteration, and the simple joy of repeating syllables. It is largely this sonic play, as much as semantic meaning, that gives the poem its pulse.

To translate this poem is to confront the question of fidelity: what must one be faithful to—the semantic content, the cultural references, or sheer sound?

A literal rendering would often betray the poem’s spirit. Take, for instance, the line “перколясали бели лястовици”—literally, “deranged white swallows.” The white swallow is a layered symbol in Bulgarian: rare good fortune and the promise of healing in a classic short story by Yordan Yovkov. The phrase is heavy with cultural resonance. But alongside this weight, the Bulgarian carries the lilting repetition of л, с, and и sounds. My version—“certifiably frenzied finches”—abandons the cultural resonance in order to achieve a fluttering sound pattern in English.

One of the most playful phrases in the poem is “нагли баби яги с нацупени дупета”—literally, “brazen Baba Yagas with pouting little bottoms.” The doubled syllables give the line a comic rhythm, as if the sound itself mocks the image. I rendered this as “grim grannies with grumpy bums,” an infidelity that drops the culture-specific Baba Yaga but echoes the original’s alliterative bounce.

The poem also reads as a manifesto against stereotypes. A literal rendition of such lines says:

surreal surprises

of the kind that

the flung bouquets

behind cemeteries are not only flowers,

but also hands.

Trying to use alliteration and assonance, as well as play with the syntax, I’ve tried to preserve the idea of this elemental, volatile force that refuses to be confined:

uncanny discoveries—like

saying the flowers flung around graves,

rather than mere wilted wreaths,

are indeed arms, reaching out.

In translating lines such ‘’видиотени видеотеки‘‘ (literally: “stupefied video stores’’), I’ve tried to preserve the sound play and also make sense of what this is supposed to mean in the context of the poem, although the phrase itself seems to lean towards the nonsensical. So, I’ve turned this into ‘’rusty reels of old images’’. Similarly, ‘’ласкаво-прасковите градини на Сътворението‘‘ (meaning “the peach-tender gardens of Creation’’) became ‘’the fruity and fragrant gardens of the Gods”.

At times, the literal rendition of some lines sounds fun as well but since a different rendition came to me when I first started listing different English phrases, I’ve kept this just because it has brought the forward momentum of the stanza and packs more alliteration: ‘’събуват табутата‘‘ (literally, they ‘’unshoe the taboos”) has become ‘’they shake off the shackles of shabby dogmas and canons.”

My translation spontaneously came to seek fidelity to play: to the sound-driven, list-making exuberance that makes Roshkev’s catalogues fizz with both nonsense and revelation.

—Rosalia Ignatova