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in this issue
Guardians of a European Dimension
Martin CamajMartin Camaj
Martin Camaj, 1962
12 poems
Translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie and Janice Mathie-Heck
Martin Camaj was born in Temali in the Dukagjin region of the northern Albanian alps. He is an émigré writer of significance both for Albanian literature and for Albanian scholarship. He received a classical education at the Jesuit Saverian college in Shkodër and studied at the University of Belgrade. From there he went on to do postgraduate research in Italy, where he taught Albanian and finished his studies in linguistics at the University of Rome in 1960. From 1970 to 1990 he served as professor of Albanian studies at the University of Munich and lived in the mountain village of Lenggries in Upper Bavaria until his death on 12 March 1992.
Camaj's academic research has concentrated on the Albanian language and its dialects, in particular those of southern Italy. His literary activities over a period of forty-five years cover several phases of development. He began with poetry, a genre to which he remained faithful throughout his life, but in later years also devoted himself increasingly to prose. His first volumes of classical verse Nji fyell ndër male (A Flute in the Mountains), Prishtina 1953; and Kânga e vërrinit (Song of the Lowland Pastures), Prishtina 1954, were inspired by his native northern Albanian mountains for which he never lost his attachment, despite long years of exile and the impossibility of return. These were followed by Djella (Djella), Rome 1958, a novel interspersed with verse about the love of a teacher for a young girl of the lowlands. His verse collections Legjenda (Legends), Rome 1964; and Lirika mes dy moteve (Lyrics between Two Ages), Munich 1967, which contained revised versions of a number of poems from Kânga e vërrinit, were reprinted in Poezi 1953-1967 (Poetry 1953-1967), Munich 1981. Camaj's mature verse reflects the influence of the hermetic movement of Italian poet Giuseppe Ungaretti (1888-1970). The metaphoric and symbolic character of his language increases with time as does the range of his poetic themes. A selection of his poetry has been translated into English by Leonard Fox in the volumes Selected Poetry, New York 1990, and Palimpsest, Munich & New York 1991.
Failure
I began singing in the choir
At the wrong moment: out of fear, shame?
"Alright, get out!" said the teacher.
"Get out!"
I descended from the last row
Like a red pepper plucked from the beam,
And counted the steps, one by one,
To the end,
Under the earth
With the weight of one hundred eyes on my shoulders.
[Deshtimi, from the volume Njeriu më vete e me tjerë, Munich 1978, p.27]
Springtime in an Arbëresh Village
The buds emerge from the cracks in the rocks
And from the hummocks on the path to the cliff.
The tender tiny faces with thin stems
Listen to the conversations of the strong-fisted women
Returning from the fields
And none of them mentions the spring.
My days there passed as in a dream
With eyes fixed on the early spring flowers drowned
In the month of April's wild rising grass.
I woke up on the day of my departure with a wreath
Of meaningless words in my hand.
[Pranvera në katundin arbresh, from the volume Njeriu më vete e me tjerë, Munich 1978, p.28]
There Before the Tribes Arrived
You were
There before the tribes arrived
With your milk in a fissure in the rock
And with your feet in salt water.
They gave you but one name: Shkodra.
And they called you a crowned city
And they cast stones at your head
And ancient iron.
How often did you awaken drenched with blood
And observe yourself in the mirror?
Bearing a woman's name, you bathed in the waters
Of the river and enthroned yourself with fresh garments
Upon the cliff
Your brow shining in the sun over the fields.
[Aty si tash para se me ardhë fiset, from the volume Njeriu më vete e me tjerë, Munich 1978, p.31]
In the Shade of Things
In the shade this afternoon where I took my rest
I plucked a blade of grass in my thoughts.
The night crickets are chirping.
Near the hearth I hear the pods
Of ginestra
Bursting in my breast.
[Në hijen e sendeve, from the volume Njeriu më vete e me tjerë, Munich 1978, p.33]
To a Modern Poet
Your road is good:
The Parcae are the ugliest faces
Of classical myths. You did not write of them,
But of stone slabs and of human brows
Covered in wrinkles, and of love.
Your verses are to be read in silence
And not before the microphone
Like those of other poets,
The heart
Though under seven layers of skin
Is ice,
Ice
Though under seven layers of skin.
[Nji poeti të sotëm, from the volume Njeriu më vete e me tjerë, Munich 1978, p.37]
That Mountain of Ice Divides Time
(That mountain of ice had a name,
Its name was taboo!)
Before my eyes closed in sleep,
I beheld that peak of pale ice
At my feet.
The wind arrived with the sun and melted it,
And there, in my shadow, appeared a flower.
[Ai mal akulli ndan kohën, from the volume Njeriu më vete e me tjerë, Munich 1978, p.40]
Fragment
The worker sets off in search of work abroad
With a piece of sky in his arms
And sea salt in pinewood boxes.
In his hand he holds a slingshot,
And river pebbles in his mouth
Instead of bread.
The road before him is lit
By his eyes' glowing embers.
[Fragment, from the volume Njeriu më vete e me tjerë, Munich 1978, p.41]
The Old Deer
The shepherds abandoned the alpine pastures
For the warmth of the lowland valleys,
Sauntering down the trails, talking loudly
About women and laughing
Beside the water of the stream bubbling forth
From well to well.
The old deer raised its head from the scorched earth
And observed the pale foliage. Then
It departed to join its sons,
They too with their minds on the does.
Broken, it too abandoned the alpine pastures and followed
The merry murmur of the stream below, a fiery arrow,
The wanderer in search of warmer pastures and winter grass
Which it will never touch!
When they slew it, the shepherds pried its eyes open
And saw in the pupils
The reflection of many deer drinking water from the stream.
[Dreni plak, from the volume Njeriu më vete e me tjerë, Munich 1978, p.47]
Two Generations
My father was
A sad-looking fellow,
A leafless olive tree
With black pits on every bough.
His words rumbled loudly
Within us
As if they were a famished wolf's howling
Alone in the barren cliffs.
My brother took
His place,
My barefoot brother
- cold wind on the horizon -
And blew at the autumnal fire
With full cheeks,
And all the sparks became
Sons.
[Dy brezni, from the volume Njeriu më vete e me tjerë, Munich 1978, p.53]
Abandoned Village
Abandoned village
Behind the back of the earth
With houses and lanes which abut
Cliffs.
Inside, the old people light
Fires in the evening in ashes
Burnt endlessly. The moon
After setting everywhere else,
Stops for a moment at their windows
And speaks to the folk
Frightened of the Evil Eye.
[Katund i lanun mbas dore, from the volume Njeriu më vete e me tjerë, Munich 1978, p.62]
Hostile Sea
The sea bears everything with it, say the old people,
With the ever-blowing wind on one side
And pine and fruit trees on the other
Pressed to the ground.
We, the ancient inhabitants,
Love the land. Even the crickets
Bursting in the hot roots of the pine trees
Smell of resin and not of the sea.
Even the spirits of gods
Are hidden in the rocks and not in the salty
Sea! Sweet figs
Swoon red-lipped on their heads
In sacrifice.
[Deti anmik, from the volume Njeriu më vete e me tjerë, Munich 1978, p.72]
Fragile Land
To the tribes below the Drin
Between Molç Mountain and Qerret
There opens a gorge leading down to the river,
Formed as if it had been a lake,
And we were out there alone, on it, still,
In dugouts of maple.
We used to know by heart
The names of choice fish and not
Of preying birds and wild
Foliage.
Even the sheen in our eyes
Would be blue and not black.
We would float in the water
Not in the clouds.
[Vend i thyeshëm, from the volume Njeriu më vete e me tjerë, Munich 1978, p. 87]
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