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Transcript 24 Contemporary Verse from Albania

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Bitter Memories

Visar Zhiti
b.1952

12 poems from the volume The Condemned Apple, Los Angeles: Green Integer, 2005

Translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie and Janice Mathie-Heck
Visar Zhiti is the Albanian writer whose life and works perhaps best mirror the history of his nation. He was one of the many to have suffered appalling persecution for no apparent reason. But Visar Zhiti survived - physically, intellectually and emotionally, and he is now among the most popular poets of present-day Albania.

Born in the Adriatic port of Durrës, Visar Zhiti showed an early interest in verse and had published some poems in literary periodicals. In 1973, he was preparing a verse collection for publication when the so-called Purge of the Liberals broke out in Tirana at the Fourth Plenary Session of the Communist Party. Zhiti, whose father had earlier come into conflict with the authorities, was one of the many scapegoats selected as a means of terrifying the intellectual community. The manuscript of the verse collection which he had submitted to the editors of the Naim Frashëri publishing company was deemed to contain grave ideological errors and was interpreted as having blackened socialist reality. His works were denounced as anti-communist agitation and propaganda, and there was nothing the poet could say to his interrogators to prove his innocence. After years of uncertainty under the Damocles Sword of the Party, Visar Zhiti was arrested in November 1979 in Kukës where he was still teaching, and spent the following months in solitary confinement. To keep his sanity, he composed and memorized over a hundred poems without the aid of pen or paper. Sentenced at a mock trial in April 1980 to thirteen years in prison, he was taken to Tirana jail and, from there, transferred up to the isolated northern mountains to serve time in the infamous concentration camps similar to the Soviet gulags, among them, the living hell of the copper mines at Spaç and to the icy mountain prison of Qafë-Bari. Many of his fellow prisoners died of mistreatment and malnutrition, or went mad. Visar Zhiti was released in 1987 and kept a low profile until the end of the dictatorship. Since that time, he has worked as a journalist and served as a member of parliament and as a diplomat in the Albanian foreign service. From 1997-1999, he was cultural attaché at the Albanian Embassy in Rome.

Visar Zhiti's first volume of verse Kujtesa e ajrit (The Memory of the Air) was published in Tirana in 1993. It contains some of the so-called prison poems as well as verse inspired by his first journeys outside the 'big prison' that was Albania. The second collection, Hedh një kafkë te këmbët tuaja (I Cast a Skull at your Feet), published in Tirana in 1994, contains the full cycle of 110 prison poems composed between 1979 and 1987, verse which survived miraculously in the recesses of the poet's memory. Both volumes were well received in Albania and by Albanian-speaking readers in the former Yugoslavia. Someone had finally given voice to the hundreds of silenced and broken intellectuals.

Among Zhiti's subsequent verse collections are: Mbjellja e vetëtimave (Sowing Lightning), Skopje 1994; Dyert e gjalla (The Living Doors), Tirana 1995; Kohë e vrarë në sy (Time Murdered in the Eye), Prishtina 1997; and, most recently, Si shkohet në Kosovë (Where is the Road to Kosova), Tirana 2000.

Visar Zhiti has received notable international recognition. In 1991, he was awarded the Italian "Leopardi d'oro" prize for poetry and in 1997 the prestigious "Ada Negri" prize. He is a member of the Alfonso Grassi International Academy of Art and has taken part in many international poetry festivals in recent years. His verse has been translated into English in the volume The Condemned Apple: Selected Poetry, Los Angeles 2005.



The Arrival of Pegasus in my Cell


During the day -
Morning, afternoon,
During the night -
Evening, midnight, after midnight
Every clank caused me to shudder,
Reminded me of the shackles,
As if the guards were coming to take me away
And fling me into a cavern
emptywhere even fear itself is horror-stricken.
All the clanking...
emptyBut what clanking?...
emptyemptyWhat did it all mean,
emptyemptythe clanking?...
emptyemptyPetrified, I put my eye
To the loop-hole.
On the small patch of grass - horseshoes.
emptyA stallion was grazing
As it once did
In my dreams.
Its shining body
Like dawn washed by rain and moonlight.
emptyWhat good fortune has brought you here?
emptyAre you not Pegasus?!
I, too, had verdant dreams,
emptyas fresh as grass.
Some they trampled,
Others I kept.
Let me throw you some of them -
emptyeat!
And with parched lips,
I whispered slowly,
As lovers might have whispered:
'Stallion, oh stallion...'

It raised its head,
We looked one another in the eye.
I had not seen myself in a mirror for some time,
Had almost forgotten what my face looked like.
I saw myself in the stallion's eyes,
Such human eyes
emptyshining as if in pain.
I was shorn bald,
Bearded and filthy...
emptyemptyand turned away
So as not to startle it with my wild appearance.

(in a cell in Kukës prison, December 1979)


[Ardhja e Pegasit në qelinë time, from the volume The Condemned Apple, Los Angeles: Green Integer 2005, p.67]



Moments Pass


Moments pass
Over my body
Like lice

In this hole of a prison
Filled with the soil of suffering
I sit and wait

How sad it is
To be a warrior
emptyemptywithout a war.

(1982)


[Çastet ikin, from the volume The Condemned Apple, Los Angeles: Green Integer 2005, p.73]




The Condemned Apple


The day gapes open
Like a endless chasm under my feet.
How can I fill it to enter the next day?
Hundreds of times have I heaved myself into it,
emptyemptytrodden upon myself.
Descent into solitude!
I have been left without the comfort of human voices
emptyemptyemptyas if without fire.
Barefoot day after day
I walk back and forth
With nowhere to go.
There is no road under my feet,
No one here to say 'good morning,'
They hurl a broom at me
And make me sweep the floor
emptyemptyof my misfortune.
And I, gone mad, scream in silence:
Hi there, world!
You may have forgotten me,
emptyemptybut not I, you.

There I stood before an Apple
How could I not be overjoyed?
An Apple,
Apple, Apple,
Which brought to earth the love of Adam
emptyand Eve from the deception of paradise,
It fell from a branch,
emptyememptyproving to us the theory of gravity.
An Apple
As red as kissed lips
What enigma does it withhold, what desire
That even war cannot overcome?
Apple,
A dream to be grasped above the heads of men.

And they even arrest Apples!...

When they take me to the interro(r)gation room
The interrogator shouts: you, you, ou, ou, u, u
Read the book 'Apple' by Yevtushenko.
"No," I reply.
"We have evidence you've been translating poetry."
"No!" I lie.
All night
They leave me standing in a corner.

Into my face they blow cigarette smoke
emptyemptyemptyspewing out of their throats,
The fumes of civil war,
What ghost does it conjure up, or is it from our ruins?
What can I do? I wrap around myself
Like the Apple hiding in the leaves.
The seeds inside
Must be protected.
Words must be shrouded,
Songs must be sheltered
emptyuntil the chasms of day are sown with apples.
Let them shoot us in the head,
My blood will grow roots
emptyemptyand will blossom.


[Molla e dënimit, from the volume The Condemned Apple, Los Angeles: Green Integer 2005, p.103]



The Child and the Lunatic Land


You are only a child and your land is a lunatic,
It refuses to play with you
emptyemptynot even on summer holidays.
How often has it frightened you
With the brutal slamming of doors.

"Don't go outside," it said, "be good now!"
And yet from up on the veranda came the soft cooing of doves.
You took a slice of bread and scattered
The crumbs
emptyfor the flock of dreams
emptyemptyemptyto feed on.

"Do not waste bread!"
emptyscreamed the nation in school-teacher fashion
And blinded your view with the palm of its hand.
But this you forgot and again were enthralled by the fall of night,
By the streets under the tearful stars.
Then your parents came home, tired, ever so tired,
And smiled for you alone, for
emptyemptyeven smiles are needed,
And suddenly everything turned into fun and games,
But not your country.
emptyYou don't play games
emptyemptywith a lunatic land.

(Qafë Bari prison camp, 8 August 1986)


[Fëmija dhe atdheu i çmendur, from the volume The Condemned Apple, Los Angeles: Green Integer 2005, p.115]



Life


I loved you...

My rain,
The turn in the road which takes you from home,
My first kiss,
All this I would have given you.

Yes, I loved you!

The seaside, the lampshade resting on the dictionaries,
My rebellious youth,
All this I would have given you.

I loved you, I loved you so much.
The azure spectacle of the clouds in my eyes
emptyemptyemptyfloating into your eyes,
All this I would have given you.

I have always loved you, from the very start.

All my journeys home I gave to you,
Storms and cascading stars I gave to you,
And the joys and sorrows of city life I gave to you,
And half of the apple I gave to you.
And you have forgotten it all
Like a book of verse
When we get off the train.

(25 November 1983)


[Jetë, from the volume The Condemned Apple, Los Angeles: Green Integer 2005, p.127]



Little Prison, Big Prison



Do you know the two brothers in prison?

There are also three brothers,
And a father and son.
There are also a grandfather and grandson in prison.
A father-in-law and a son-in-law,
A man and his wife,
(His love languishes in the women's ward
Over hair shorn,
emptyemptylike a blackbird
With wings clipped that it not soar).

There is also a family in prison,
All together
They've been sentenced to over a century.

Be steadfast!
Our whole country is a prison,
Draped in barbed wire,
Sentenced to three thousand years. Before Christ.
Our little prison
In the belly of a big prison
Is like a baby in the pouch
Of a crazed kangaroo.
You may despair,
But be steadfast!


[Burgu i vogël, burgu i madh, from the volume The Condemned Apple, Los Angeles: Green Integer 2005, p.143]



Death Continues


He collapsed at the stairs,
Got up no more
(death then continued his journey).

... they'll cremate him in the grounds... no one knows where...
Without a coffin...
All the wood was used up for the beds
(Building 2, Room 7, Row 3, No. 51).

... without a funeral...
(the crowds had accompanied him once
When he went to trial - handcuffed)


... not even a gravestone...
Though he spent years extracting stone, stone, stone.

They had bewailed him somewhere
For he had also perished earlier.

He worked underground
And knew the darkness of a tomb.

(Spaç prison camp, 16 January 1983)


[Vdekja vazhdon, from the volume The Condemned Apple, Los Angeles: Green Integer 2005, p.151]



Death Impresses No One Here


The tunnel caved in
And a prisoner was killed.
(but the chains he was wearing have not yet been killed)

And so, the chain gang returned to camp
With one man less,
With one corpse more,
Undelivered to its family for burial.

(You are neither among the living
Nor among the dead.
You have no life,
Not even a grave!)

The jacket worn by the dead prisoner
Is held in the hands of one of his friends.
Throw it at the feet
Of the officer at the gate,
In charge of the watchmen,
And say: "Count it, are we all here?"

Take the jacket
And shield Albania's trembling shoulders.

(9 March 1983)


[Vdekja këtu nuk trondit kërkënd, from the volume The Condemned Apple, Los Angeles: Green Integer 2005, p.155]



Bloody Lips


The open wound
Of the gladiator
Gurgles out life's end.

The cries of acclamation from the stands
Fill the sky with raging tigers.

Waving their arms about, to incite the masses,
The aging notables add an air of dignity to the arena.
Making their separate entries, they k
emptyemptyemptyemptyemptyempn
emptyemptyemptyemptyemptyempe
emptyemptyemptyemptyemptyempe
emptyemptyemptyemptyemptyempl over emptythe still warm corpses
Of the young. Their withered lips they pose
Upon the fresh flowing wounds
And, to prolong their lives - so they believe,
Suck, ravenously suck out the blood, blood, blood.
Fresh blood from the sun,
Flowing into filthy veins
As if into sewage pipes,

And thus the Heart of the Nation is abandoned.

(Lushnja, 1987)


[Buzët me gjak, from the volume The Condemned Apple, Los Angeles: Green Integer 2005, p.177]



In our Cells


They keep us in our cells
For a long time...

And, if we get out,
We lug them with us on our shoulders,
Like a porter with a chest of goods.

(1980)


[from the volume The Condemned Apple, Los Angeles: Green Integer 2005, p.209]



The Tyrant's One-Time Office, near which I Work


Cautiously I opened the door of the tyrant's great office,
How odd, I'm filled with fear again, a different kind of fear.
I thought the walls would be spattered
emptyemptywith the blood of the masses,
That the ashtrays on the long desk would surely be made
Of the skulls of ministers shot dead.
The floorboards did not crackle nervously,
There was no whirlpool of intrigues,
No abyss of convictions. No gun barrels
Emerging from the drawers
emptyemptylike the eyes of metal detectors.
I stood silent, pallid
As if just over a long illness.

... they were destroying the symbols of tyranny...
The noise of the hammers was like
emptyemptythe dismantling of a guillotine.
Neither occupation, nor earthquakes, nor cholera
Spread by mice in the Middle Ages, nor world wars
Brought this cataclysm upon Albania, but rather
emptythis much-dreaded office, here!

Before my very eyes hung a crystal chandelier
Like a head chopped off,
emptyhanging by the hair.

(Tirana, 22 March 1994)


[Zyra e dikurshme e diktatorit, pranë së cilës punoj, from the volume The Condemned Apple, Los Angeles: Green Integer 2005, p. 253]



Far from our Countries


Far from our countries, like two Tantaluses
We drank coffee: I and a publisher
emptyemptyfrom Belgrade,
We spoke about Kosova in a third language.
It used to be the cradle of Serbia, he said, so we have rights,
But it is full of Albanians, so you have rights.
So, you mean, we should have had more cradles,
emptyemptyI said. He fell silent.
But let us not turn the cradles into graves, I added sighing,
One's country is an accident, said the publisher from Belgrade.
So let us not lose it accidentally, I added.
We can enrich one another. No one is
emptyemptysuperfluous.

Shall we turn our cups over to read our fate,
My good Serb? Behind yonder mountains in the Balkans
Our future lies waiting. Like the nymphs it rises from the waters
Which flow through the

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