Ashes of Light: New and Selected Poems

Levchev (b. 1935) has gotten a wide reputation for his poetry beyond his native Bulgari. He has received awards in France and Russia; and his poems have been translated into German, Greek, Hindi, Polish, and Spanish, among other languages. In this volume, 49 poems from his 50-year span of writing are arranged chronologically. The poems evidence Levchev's range of subjects, thoughts, and observations. Throughout his decades of writing his style has for the most past retained a directness and concreteness. With these stylistic attributes, he portrays the historical and cultural complexities of Bulgaria and by implication other Eastern European lands. Many poems--e. g., Love in the Military Hospital--approach a Kafkaesque sense of absurdity; but any budding sense of defeat and estrangement is overtaken or in some cases negated by notes of optimism or hope or by the realization of one's possibilities, however limited, in such circumstances. As the poet recognizes in one place, this is where "the age of blind luck reigned" since persons living uncertain lives in totalitarian systems had hardly any control over their own destinies and fates. "And under me/seven ages/have already been excavated..." [from "Not Far From the Shore]. Levchev lucidly and only at times bitterly depicts the balancing act of surviving, keeping one's sanity, and nurturing seeds of hope and betterment when circumstances are precarious and often threatening.

Principally translated by Valentin Krustev, with supplemental translations by Jack Harte, Ashes Of Light anthologizes philosophical, metaphorical, intuitive, and eccentric poetical rhetoric drawn from the works of Lyubomir Levchev. Gracing readers with the slight of tongue and diligent touch of realism, Ashes Of Light confronts life with vividly wording images and verse. Caprice No. Two: Dammit!/This world is so mercurial,/so entertaining/and so kind/that it starts reminding me/of the house of a hanged man!/And I am giggling./I am wandering the streets/with some friend of mine/who figures out the cunning game/and then guess what their legs are like./And I am giggling...//Yet how I feel like talking about the rope!/Ah, how I feel like talking about the rope!...