Public Republic

Kristin Dimitrova

Photo: benandbarnet

Like an ant that hauls a crumb
but has forgotten where the ant-hill is,
she stares at details,

then cleans the sink very carefully.
These things that happen in films,
who invents them?

So now, between two men –
the first one history and the other
still in the coffee-grounds –

she seeks protection for herself
when she doesn’t seek protection
from herself. As for the telephone,

sometimes it rings, sometimes it babbles,
the third time she broke it.
What a boundless abyss of time past

and future, Marcus Aurelius,
I agree. And in the middle, a button
that says ‘don’t touch’.

from: My Life in Squares (Smokestack Books, 2010)

“My Life in Squares”
Kristin Dimitrova

Publisher:Smokestack Books
ISBN: 978-0-9560341-7-5

My Life in Squares is an introduction to the work of a major European poet and one of the most original writers to emerge in recent years from the ‘new Europe’. A prize-wining and widely anthologised writer, Kristin Dimitrova’s work has been published in 22 countries and translated into 19 languages. Oblique, subtle and witty, her poems creep up on her subjects from behind, demonstrating that looking at something sideways is not the same as avoiding the issue.

More about the book and the author: http://www.smokestack-books.co.uk/books/dimitrova.html