THE PROSE POEM IS STILL IN MANY WAYS UNKNOWN TERRITORY

Dag T. Straumsvåg 

I have recently discovered the fascinating poetry of the Norwegian poet Dag T. Straumsvåg, author of A Bumpy Ride to the Slaughterhouse and The Lure-Maker from Posio.  It is such a pleasure to welcome Dag and thank him for generously agreeing to answer a few questions... 

Dear Dag, reading your work I had the feeling that your poems oscillate between painting and poetry—how do they appear to you as you create them?

I like to start a new poem with something ordinary, something familiar, a man eating breakfast in his kitchen, for instance—and then give it a nudge. Suddenly the man is mystified, confused, trapped in something he doesn't know what is. What happens now? At this point I am as confused as he is, I don’t know where the poem is going. It is my favorite part of the writing process. Anything can happen, and you think that you may be able to lift this ordinary scene into something extraordinary. A moment later the poem usually collapses in front of my eyes, of course. On the few occasions it doesn't, I try to finish the first draft as fast as I can. Then I start revising it, working on the language, the colors, filling in details, etc. So, yes, I think you are right, there is a resemblance between this way of writing and the way a painter works, and that it also may show in the finished poem.

What has been your trajectory as a poet/writer?

I started writing poems around 1990. My brother gave me a little book with ancient Chinese poems, and I was hooked. So I started reading and writing incessantly, and to my surprise, got a book of verse poems published in 1999. I wasn’t happy with it, though, and kept looking for other ways and forms of writing. When I discovered the prose poem, things just “clicked.” Its mix of poetry and prose was just what I was looking for. It is also a form that is often frowned upon in literary circles, which suits me fine. It gives me a feeling of freedom to be on the outside of what is considered good taste. The prose poem is still in many ways unknown territory, it hasn’t been surveyed like the verse poem has been, it hasn’t been institutionalized yet. It is a good place to be, there is a lot more exploring to do, I hope. That keeps me moving forward. Also, the prose poem is a good place to re-introduce the fable, the story, the short narrative, to poetry. In modern times, academia seems to have built an artificial wall between the poem and the story. Maybe the prose poem can help tearing down that wall. Probably not, but wouldn’t it be nice if it did?

Who is your ideal reader?

The one who doesn’t run away at the sight of a book of poems!

What other writers inspire you?

The Scandinavian poets Olav H. Hauge and Tomas Tranströmer have been very important to me, and still are. I love the work of Russell Edson, James Tate, the short prose pieces of Kafka, Daniil Kharms, the prose poems of Jean Follain and Max Jacob. Just to mention a few. And I always go back to the ancient Chinese poets.

Tell us a funny story from your school years.

I can’t think of any particular story that stands out. Bits and pieces from my childhood are scattered around in my poems, though. In general, my life has been quite uneventful. I guess that’s why I make up stories for my poems.

Your poems stopped me in my tracks because although they are highly original and so pure, they reminded me violently of Daniil Kharms. What is your relationship with his work?

I hadn’t read anything by Kharms at the time I wrote the Bumpy Ride poems. Believe it or not. However, I have always been attracted to the absurd realism of East European writing, the dark humor, the close relationship between tragedy and comedy. So there is a connection there. When I started reading Kharms a couple of years later, he blew my mind. A truly original writer, one of the great ones. I think there are a couple of poems directly inspired by Kharms in my new book, The Lure-Maker from Posio.

What was the inspiration for the stories in A Bumpy Ride to the Slaughterhouse?

Nothing in particular, but in general I get inspired by everyday events. It can be anything, bits of conversations I overhear, the contents of a drawer I haven’t opened in years, fables, folk tales. Nature, and especially the landscape where I grew up, is always a source of inspiration. I love poems that start with something funny and end with something heartbreaking—or vice versa. As I get older, I am starting to realize that pretty much anything can be heartbreaking and funny, so I am not looking for it anymore. I trust that if I keep on writing, it will appear by itself.

Tell us about Dag the person... who are you, what amuses you?

There isn’t much to tell. I lead a boring and uneventful life. I get up in the morning to write and go to bed at night, frustrated with what I have written... That’s about it. As for what amuses me, I have to say people. All the silly things we do and say during the cause of a day.

How do you promote your work?

Like most poets, I hardly promote my work at all, except for the occasional reading here and there. It is embarrassing how little I do to promote my work. Luckily for me, Robert Hedin and Louis Jenkins, who have translated my poems into English, keep sending my work to journals all over the US, as well as publishing my poems in books. I don’t know what I’d do without them.

Many thanks, Dag!  Thank you for generously sharing with your readers two poems (Dr. Alfred and Urho Sariainen) from your latest book, The Lure-Maker from Posio, published by Red Dragonfly Press.     

DR. ALFRED

He came down with this disease, a small disease, but it was all he had. His parents were dead, his friends gone. At first he was reserved. Then he noticed the disease had social skills that he lacked himself. People opened up when they visited, talked more. He cared for the disease with a loving hand, carried it with him wherever he went. He watched it grow into a strain no one had ever seen before, and he blossomed at the attention they got. Then the disease grew stronger, took more and more control. It participated in TV-debates, went out on the town alone. “Only specialists will be there, you wouldn’t understand a thing.” Late one night the disease told him they had to talk. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but you and I have grown apart. I’m moving in with Dr. Alfred. You remember Alfred? We’ve been seeing each other secretly for several months. We’re so good together.”

Translated by Robert Hedin

from The Lure-Maker from Posio, Red Dragonfly Press, 2011

URHO SARIAINEN

“Do you like fishing?” I ask Urho Sariainen, the fabled eighty-year old lure-maker from Posio, who has honored our town this summer with a visit. A pioneer in the field, he began working with traumatized lures in the early 70's—lures with rusty hooks in their mouths, fins all torn off, gills slashed, eyes reflecting advanced paranoia and depression, faces frozen in fear only encounters with death can cause. “Fishing’s no picnic,” the old master says, scratching a one-eyed Rapala on its belly.

Translated by Robert Hedin

from The Lure-Maker from Posio, Red Dragonfly Press, 2011

A Fantastic Book on the Writer's Life

I had the pleasure of reading Key West Story, the latest novel by Rick Skwiot, and had the joy of meeting troubled soul Con Martens, a Key West writer married to - or, as he muses in a moment of truth, shackled to - his writing, desperately fighting a bad case of writer's block as he immerses himself in the hot and spicy adventures of Key West.  Along comes, for a delightful ride, illegal immigrant Eva who wants badly to marry him and keeps pitching her "business plans" in adorably broken English  ("I need Green Card, you need money.  So I pay you going rate: ten thousand American dollars." (...) "Two years we live together in marriage.  No baby.  Plus hot sex and Czech cooking.  What do you say?  Is good offer? ")  and  Cat, the .22 automatic carrying ( "Put the gun down, Cat.  I think now's the time to discuss our relationship.  Monogamy.  I am willing to negotiate") jealous lover.  But more importantly along comes, for a surreal ride, the Key West icon, the man himself, Ernest Hemingway to "give literary guidance and moral instruction and get us back on track." 


Although Key West Story's characters are well-rounded and multidimensional, the book is a pleasure to read and enjoy by readers who want to understand bohemian writers, and by writers who need to stay on track to do their best work.  As I was reading it, I saw Key West Story not only as a book telling us an amazing story about Key West, the place where most everyone "had too much sun and rum," but also as a book carrying a deeply profound message about the writing life, about the writer's mission and the mistakes that can be fatal to a writer's career.  A book about writer's responsibility to stay true to The Code, as Hemingway advises:

"We're all writers, Conman, limning a faint sketch across the surface of the earth.  Some of us will write books that will end up in the libraries for a few years before they rot or burn.  But if you can write a story that's true and honest without bull****ing yourself or anyone else, maybe that's worth something fleeting. And if it's good enough it will last as long as there are human beings.  Hold to The Code, Conman..."

Following is an excerpt that every writer should paste above his or her desk.  The dialogue between Con and Hemingway on writing and its feeble balance with the world comes down to writer's duty to be there, by his typewriter, rain or shine, and trust that the world will come to its senses on a humble piece of paper:

" Money ain't your problem, Conman.  Problem is you're a writer who ain't writing.  The one who is doing the work is not the one poverty bothers."

Con re-tied the bowline at his feet.  "I'm just in a fallow period."

"How long has this 'fallow period' lasted?"

"Well, since Sirens in the Streets."

"How long?"

"Four years."

"You're not fallow, Conman, you're blocked.  That's what you've got, you fornicator: writer's block...You can make light of it, but better men and women than we have died of it.  The one good thing I always had to guard against was this: Whenever I sensed it was time to begin a story I've been mulling, as soon as I sat down at the cafe table with pen and paper or stood at the typewriter and knocked out a few hundreds words, the whole scope and shape of it would start coming to me like a ship through a fog bank.  A nice and necessary skill for a writer to have, Conman, to find freighters lost in the fog."  

And although Hemingway is saying the words, we know that it is Skwiot talking to us here.  Finding freighters lost in the fog - how well this captures not only what writing is, but what life is all about. 

The book is available at 
http://www.amazon.com/Key-West-Story-Novel-ebook/dp/B006WS3J8E/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_6 

Before the Law: Flash Fiction by Franz Kafka

"I enclose picture of myself when I was perhaps five years old.
At that time, that angry face was just for fun, but now I think of it
as the secret truth..." says Kafka to his fiancee Felice Bauer.

Hard to write significant stories under 1,000 words? So they say. Kafka did it brilliantly in "Before the Law." This excellent English translation by Ian Johnston has just 642 words but packs a thunder of a parable.  
The text itself is from http://www.kafka-online.info/about-us.htm, and slightly reformatted by me.  

Before the Law

By Frank Kafka

Translation by Ian Johnston

Before the law sits a gatekeeper. To this gatekeeper comes a man from the country who asks to gain entry into the law. But the gatekeeper says that he cannot grant him entry at the moment. The man thinks about it and then asks if he will be allowed to come in later on. “It is possible,” says the gatekeeper, “but not now.” At the moment the gate to the law stands open, as always, and the gatekeeper walks to the side, so the man bends over in order to see through the gate into the inside. When the gatekeeper notices that, he laughs and says: “If it tempts you so much, try it in spite of my prohibition. But take note: I am powerful. And I am only the most lowly gatekeeper. But from room to room stand gatekeepers, each more powerful than the other. I can’t endure even one glimpse of the third.”

The man from the country has not expected such difficulties: the law should always be accessible for everyone, he thinks, but as he now looks more closely at the gatekeeper in his fur coat, at his large pointed nose and his long, thin, black Tartar’s beard, he decides that it would be better to wait until he gets permission to go inside. The gatekeeper gives him a stool and allows him to sit down at the side in front of the gate. There he sits for days and years. He makes many attempts to be let in, and he wears the gatekeeper out with his requests. The gatekeeper often interrogates him briefly, questioning him about his homeland and many other things, but they are indifferent questions, the kind great men put, and at the end he always tells him once more that he cannot let him inside yet. The man, who has equipped himself with many things for his journey, spends everything, no matter how valuable, to win over the gatekeeper. The latter takes it all but, as he does so, says, “I am taking this only so that you do not think you have failed to do anything.”

During the many years the man observes the gatekeeper almost continuously. He forgets the other gatekeepers, and this one seems to him the only obstacle for entry into the law. He curses the unlucky circumstance, in the first years thoughtlessly and out loud, later, as he grows old, he still mumbles to himself. He becomes childish and, since in the long years studying the gatekeeper he has come to know the fleas in his fur collar, he even asks the fleas to help him persuade the gatekeeper. Finally his eyesight grows weak, and he does not know whether things are really darker around him or whether his eyes are merely deceiving him. But he recognizes now in the darkness an illumination which breaks inextinguishably out of the gateway to the law. Now he no longer has much time to live. Before his death he gathers in his head all his experiences of the entire time up into one question which he has not yet put to the gatekeeper. He waves to him, since he can no longer lift up his stiffening body.  The gatekeeper has to bend way down to him, for the great difference has changed things to the disadvantage of the man. “What do you still want to know, then?” asks the gatekeeper. “You are insatiable.” “Everyone strives after the law,” says the man, “so how is that in these many years no one except me has requested entry?”

The gatekeeper sees that the man is already dying and, in order to reach his diminishing sense of hearing, he shouts at him, “Here no one else can gain entry, since this entrance was assigned only to you. I’m going now to close it."

How I met Salinger in Romania

 

Professors Lounge at BCU

 

When I was a pharmacy student in Bucharest, Romania, I used to spend my life in libraries. Among my favorites was Biblioteca Centrala Universitara, known as BCU, originally sponsored and inaugurated by King Carol I of Romania in 1895.  I loved its architecture (designed by the French architect Paul Gottereau), I loved the openness of its spaces; what I dreaded was getting in and out of it because of my poor relationship with the clerk who checked library cards, a sadistic St. Peter who enjoyed harassing students by examining your card with painful attention and pointing to an improper photograph, some impending expiration date or simply looking at you as if you had done something bad.  But once you got inside the library, you were in the middle of a treasure.  Many times I would bring my pharmacy books with me;  but they stood little chance when a meter away, on the shelf, Freud, Nietzsche, Schrödinger, Dali, and a hundred others, were staring at me.   And that's kind of how I met Salinger.

That day, I was allowed to the Professor's Lounge because all other rooms were full.  This lounge (more luxurious than others), had lamps on each study station and, since was populated with very old readers, was dead silent except for the occasional flip of a page. 

  

I took my place, pulled out the Physical Chemistry books from my bag, turned on the lamp for extralight and started to study.  When I raised my eyes for a second, I noticed a small book, aparently misplaced, among the massive textbooks on the shelf nearby.  I pulled it out.  It had a strange name: De veghe in lanul de secara.  Catcher in the rye.    I had never heard of a writer named Salinger.  I opened it up and started reading, and didn't stop till the last page.  The properties of supramolecular complexes, salt crystal dissolution or the fact that water with impurities boils at higher temperature than pure water mattered less that afternoon.  I thought I knew most of the big names, dead and alive, in universal literature.  I had had my share of Balzac, Flaubert, Grass, Caragiale, Faulkner, Maupassant, Camil Petrescu, Cehov, Dostoievski, and so many others.  But none of them came even close to the electricity Salinger was able to pack in a  skinny book.  I do remember that it was 5 PM when I finished it.  I can precisley map in my mind the golden light coming from the window, its richness and plenitude and its satisfying quality that so well described what the book had given me.  I recall holding the book in my hand amazed that such a flimsy creature can pop fireworks in your brains.  Many years later, after coming to US and  learning about the cult this book generated, I was not surprised.  What I was surprised about was how much fuss people made out of the fact that Salinger was a recluse and did not want to meet others or give interviews.  Why does it matter?  What do you learn by noticing that the writer is wearing corduroy or has three cats?

Which makes me think that, in the end, Holden Caulfield was right: "People always clap for the wrong things."

Confessions of a Girl Who Quit Her Job to Write a Novel

I have the great pleasure of hosting Beth Orsoff, charming storyteller and bestselling writer who tells us with humor, irony and wit, how she became a writer.  Here is her story...



Beth Orsoff

"If you were an entertainment lawyer circa 2001, or you just knew a few entertainment lawyers in L.A. back then, you’ve probably heard of me. Not by name, of course. You just heard of the lawyer who quit her studio job to write a novel. I was infamous, for a short while at least. Even several years later, when I’d gone to work at a different movie studio, I would be on the phone negotiating a deal with another lawyer when I’d admit that I was a writer too. There’d be a pause then, “Are you that lawyer who quit her job to write a novel?” And I’d have to fess up. “Yes, I’m that lawyer.”

Prior to December 2004, it wasn’t much fun to admit that because I hadn’t yet sold my first novel. Luckily it did sell, eventually, and was published by Penguin/NAL in 2006 as “Romantically Challenged.” Believe it or not I didn’t love that title when I first proposed it to my editor (along with thirty or forty other possible titles). I know better now. But I digress.

Most people don’t ask me why I quit my job to write a novel. All they want to know is how.

It was 2000, the new millennium. The world hadn’t ended, but I had managed to pay off my law school loans in record time. Why? Because I hated feeling like an indentured servant. How? I lived cheaply (no BMW for me) and diligently sent every extra dollar I earned to the student loan companies. Five years later I was still driving my 1989 Honda Civic, but I was debt free. The first thing I did was buy a new car (1999 Mazda Miata, which I’m still driving). The second thing I did was open a savings account.

By this point I was a veteran of the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program and had several unfinished stories on my hard drive. I briefly considered going back to school for an MFA but I realized I didn’t need a degree to be a writer. What I needed was time off to write. Thus the savings account became my Beth Orsoff Gets a Life Fund (dubbed by my then-boyfriend, now-husband, as my Fuck You Fund).

It took a little over a year to save a year’s worth of living expenses plus a little extra “just in case.” (Did I mention I was used to living cheaply?) I quit my job in March 2001. Giving notice at work was easy. The hard part was telling my parents. I had nightmares about it for weeks beforehand. I played the conversation over and over again in my head, trying out different speeches, different inflections, different tones. Ultimately I chose fear. I put the fear of God into them. I think this part is best told in dialogue:

I chose our weekly Sunday morning phone call to spring it on them. I knew if I called mid-week they’d suspect something was up. This way I caught them off-guard.

“Mom, I have something to tell you. Please put Dad on the phone too.”

“Why?” Mom asked. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” I replied, “but I only want to do this once.”

“Do what once?”

“Mom, will you please just put Dad on the phone!”

“Okay, you don’t have to yell!”

As soon as my Dad picked up I launched into my well-rehearsed speech. “I have something I need to tell you. No, I’m not pregnant. And no, I’m not dying.”

“Then what is it?” Mom asked.

“Phyllis, will you just let her tell us,” Dad said.

“That’s what I’m doing,” Mom replied.

[Parental argument deleted.]

“I have something I need to tell you and I really want your support. Not financially,” I quickly added, knowing my father’s thought process, “just emotional support.”

“Okay,” Mom said, her tone skeptical.

“And before you answer, I just want you to know I’m going to remember this conversation for the rest of my life. So think before you speak.”

“Okay,” Mom said again, except this time her tone was guarded.

“I mean it, Mom. The rest of my life. The rest of your life. You really need to give the ‘A’ answer here.”

“And if we don’t?” Mom asked.

“Not only will I remember this conversation forever, but I will never, ever forgive you. Ever. Not even when you’re a decrepit old lady in a nursing home begging me to come and visit you. NEVER.”

Silence on the other end of the phone.

“I’m quitting my job to write a novel.”

“Is that all?” Dad said.

I’m proud to say that both of my parents gave the “A” answer that day. And I am forever grateful to them for it (while acknowledging that I didn’t give them any other choice).

What did it feel like to quit my job to write a novel? Terrifying. I felt like Wile E. Coyote when he runs off the cliff, turns to the camera, then pulls out the Help sign. I had no idea if there’d be a net at the bottom of the canyon or if I’d just go splat.

That first Monday morning was the worst. I woke up the same time I always did, even though I hadn’t set my alarm, and my first thought was Oh my God, I have no place to go. For the first two weeks all of my friends were supportive. “You deserve a break,” was the common refrain. Around week three or four it switched to, “Don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.” By week six it became, “Are you ever going to write this novel?”

That was the problem I hadn’t anticipated. I knew I wanted to write a novel. I knew I was tired of listening to myself whine about not having enough time to write a novel. I knew taking the time to do this so I didn’t spend the rest of my life saying What if? was the right thing to do. What I didn’t know was how to actually write a novel. So I went back to the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program and signed up for Novel Writing I. Then I started writing.

One year and two weeks later I had written the first five drafts of “Romantically Challenged,” had progressed from reading How to Write a Novel books to How to Sell a Novel books, and had sent out a handful of query letters.

Ten years later I have three published novels, another one sitting on my hard drive that I might publish someday after a good edit, and in January of this year I actually made more money as a writer then I did as a lawyer. Am I ready to quit the day job (again)? Not quite. I have more responsibilities now than I did back then. But I am cutting down my hours at the day job to part-time. That’s progress too."


Beth Orsoff is the author of humorous fiction including “Romantically Challenged,” “Honeymoon for One,” and “How I Learned to Love the Walrus.” She lives in Los Angeles with her husband.

Beth Orsoff website

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Interview with Katerina Stoykova-Klemer: "A union of words and languages"



Katerina Stoykova-Klemer

I have the pleasure of interviewing Katerina Stoykova-Klemer,  a poet of great sensibility and talent who writes in both English and Bulgarian.  Katerina talks about her relationship with her native and her adopted language, about the necessary silence that preceeds the transition to another culture and about any writer's true competition...   
 
GABRIELA POPA: Katerina, what does it mean for you to be a bilingual writer? In particular, how is the tone and content of your work (poetry or prose) informed by the fact that you are fluent in two cultures?

KATERINA STOYKOVA-KLEMER: I’ve been writing poetry since I was eight years old. I wrote in Bulgarian until the age of 24, when I immigrated to the U.S. and then didn’t write for eleven years. I believe this writing pause, this drought that I experienced, was due to the loss of the language, as well as the loss of the culture, the lack of books in Bulgarian at the time. Quite unexpectedly, one day I started writing again, in English. Whenever I wanted to share my new poems with my Bulgarian friends, I had to translate them back into my native language. The thing that was very interesting, however, was the reaction from readers who knew my earlier work. They all said: “These new poems are very much yours.” So they were able to recognize the tone as identical, regardless of the language in which the poems originated.

I do believe that once you are a poet in one language, you will be a poet in any other language you adopt. I feel fortunate that I have two countries that I call my own, and I can draw from a union of experiences, words and languages.

GABRIELA POPA: Tell us about your poetry volumes, “The Air around the Butterfly” and The Most.”

KATERINA STOYKOVA-KLEMER: “The Air around the Butterfly” is a bilingual volume of poetry, each poem appearing with side-by-side versions in English and Bulgarian. The book is comprised of three sections: My Mother Was Going to War, E.T. and I Phone Home, and The Apple Who Wanted to Become a Pinecone. The first part pertains to my life in Bulgaria before I came to the United States. The second describes my experiences as an immigrant, and the internal journey that one needs to undergo after he or she has made the physical journey to a new place. The Apple Who Wanted to Become a Pinecone is the last section in the book. It contains poems about personal growth, a lot of them short and abstract. I’m fortunate to say that this book has been well-received by readers in both Bulgaria and the USA, although the Bulgarian readers think that the book is sad, while the American readers believe it’s funny. The Air Around the Butterfly was published in Bulgaria by the Bulgarian publisher Fakel Express in 2009.

The Most was published in 2010 by an American publisher, Finishing Line Press. This chapbook contains 26 poems about hope, which I needed when I quit my engineering job to pursue writing full time. This collection strives to reach a deeper understanding of objects, actions and words, and the reader can find many examples of personification of objects, ranging from worry dolls to commodes.

GABRIELA POPA: Tell us about your journey as a writer.

KATERINA STOYKOVA-KLEMER: I see two distinct parts of my journey as a writer. The first one took place when I was a poet writing in Bulgaria, in Bulgarian, and the second, when I became a poet living in the U.S.A, writing predominantly in English. These two segments bookend a career as a software engineer, which I enjoyed tremendously. I believe programming taught me a lot about expressing myself precisely, about clarity, and about creative discipline. I also have a business degree, which I currently find very helpful in marketing not only my own work, but also the books that are produced by my independent press, Accents Publishing. I want to underscore, though, that the cornerstones of the two parts of my journey as a writer are remarkably similar – generous mentors, committed writing groups, dedicated alone time for writing and reading.

GABRIELA POPA: Could you share with us a humorous story from your days as a MFA student at Spalding?

KATERINA STOYKOVA-KLEMER: I can’t think of a humorous story, but an inspirational one. Program director Sena Jeter Naslund opens every residency with the words, “Look around you. This is not the competition. The competition is in the library.” The Spalding MFA brief residency program cultivated in all it students the thought of cooperation and support of each other’s work. This, I believe is a valuable skill for every writer to adopt.

GABRIELA POPA: You find time to organize workshops, host a radio show, manage Accents Publishing AND write poetry. How do you do it all?

KATERINA STOYKOVA-KLEMER: Writing centers me and gives me the energy to do everything else. If I write poetry that I like, there is no happier and more productive person than I. Also, there is a synergy in all these activities, which helps to build momentum and keep things going. Once you couple momentum with consistency, a lot can be accomplished.

GABRIELA POPA: Which language, do you feel, allows you more freedom, Bulgarian or English? Is that different for poetry versus prose?

KATERINA STOYKOVA-KLEMER: English has more words, so theoretically, English has more potential for nuance. The fact of the matter is, though, that my poems use simple words and expressions, so I haven’t been able to take full advantage of this quality. However, one feature that makes English a great language for writing poems is its composite idioms, which one can capitalize on in lineation to surprise the reader. While Bulgarian doesn’t offer this so readily, it does have other advantages. The words are longer and generally more musical. You can do exquisite things with sounds. Whenever I read in the USA, I try to read a little bit in Bulgarian, as well, so that the audience can experience the unique sound. Almost everyone closes his/her eyes to listen. A common comment that I hear is that the poems sound beautiful, and also last twice as long.

GABRIELA POPA: In “Author’s note” to “Image and other stories”, Bashevis Singer says: “A writer should never abandon his mother tongue and its treasure of idioms”. What is your take on that?

KATERINA STOYKOVA-KLEMER: I agree – the idioms are irreplaceable and add unique color to anyone’s work. However, they also mark the places where many translators have to use footnotes. The more culturally specific a poem is, the more difficult it is to translate well. I wrote a poem about this once, and I’d be happy to share it with your readers (see below).

GABRIELA POPA: Would you like to offer readers an excerpt of your writing?


Two

Based on Bulgarian and American adages


Two sharp stones can’t

mill flour.


Two sharp bones can’t

make a joint.


Two stones can break

most bones.


You can kill two birds

with one stone


or the same bird twice

with words.


GABRIELA POPA: Many thanks, Katerina, it's been a pleasure talking with you.  Good luck in your many creative endeavors!

“The most agreeable of executioners” - Steve Silkin on Cioran

GP: Steve, it’s such a pleasure for me to interview someone who met and talked with Emil Cioran. Reading your book “The Forbidden Stories”, I was a little bit puzzled by the detachment with which you approach your younger life. Beautiful and intriguing, your literature seems a casual expedition in a past assigned to you, rather than the past that you lived. It is therefore quite fascinating to see that you find solace in someone like Emil Cioran, who lived so intimately close to abyss and despair every second of his life. Is it because, as they say, opposites attract?

STEVE SILKIN: Cioran was more of a challenge than a solace. He had studied Bergson, but gave up on him because he said that Bergson “hadn’t seen the tragic aspect of life.” That sentence was a big influence on my first book, “The Telescope Builder.” I could’ve posted it on the wall above my desk, but I didn’t need to – it was constantly in my mind. I think you can find his influence in “The Forbidden Stories” too, especially in “Green Parrot at My Window,” “Euro-Looting” and “Song for John.” I don’t see myself as the opposite of Cioran. More of an heir, although I’ve always opted for narrative instead of his preferred forms, aphorisms and essays. I hope he would’ve liked my books.

(I also should add, in response to your note on the book, that some of the “The Forbidden Stories” are memoirs, others are based on actual events but fictionalized, and others are experimental fiction.)

GP: In one of our previous chats you said that you were very young when you met Cioran, and he insisted that the interview be in English “because he did not want any translation mistakes.” Tell us about that visit. His proficiency in French is legendary. How was his English?

STEVE SILKIN: I interviewed Cioran for the International Herald Tribune where I worked as a news clerk in 1985; he was 74, I was 28. I had studied French political institutions and the history of French literature at La Sorbonne, so I thought my French was pretty good, but he was wary. We did flip back and forth a few times, if I remember correctly, between French and English. He was fluent in French and his English was excellent.

Nevertheless, I wasn’t sure what he meant by “wives” when he explained his disdain for literary prizes – which always meant having to attend a ceremony and thank the benefactors: “If someone wants to give me money, they must do it unofficially – the way they give it to their wives – without the cameras and the press.” I thought he might be mixing up the French word “femmes” – which can be translated as “women” or “wives,” depending on context, and I thought that what he really meant was “women,” but “women” as in “prostitutes,” so I changed it to say what I thought he meant. Maybe I should’ve had more faith in his English. Mea culpa.

GP: You told me that “He was quite the raconteur, and he loved to chat about this and that. He was dressed casually, very relaxed, did not struggle for words or thoughts.” Ilinca Zarifopol-Johnston, in her book “Searching for Cioran” mentions repeatedly Cioran’s reluctance to discuss “his Romanian past”, dismissing it as “de la prehistoire”. Did you approach this subject with him?

STEVE SILKIN: I knew that his father was an orthodox priest so I asked him what his parents thought of his writing. His second book was “On the Tears of the Saints,” which he acknowledged contained some anti-Christian statements. “My friends were flabbergasted, horrified. My mother – I should have published this book after the death of my parents. My father was disappointed. No, not disappointed. Amazed. Resigned.”

I regret that I did not ask him more about his youth. I have since learned that like many intellectuals of his generation in Romania, he was pro-fascist as a young man. I’d suggest that in later life he probably dismissed his early days as “de la pre-histoire” in order to avoid that issue. I wouldn’t have thought to ask. Nothing I encountered in his writing suggested any embrace of fascism or excuse for it.

I did ask him about whether he returned to Romania. I got the impression that he didn’t find it welcoming. “At the butcher shop, there are only the heads and the feet of the chicken,” he said. “So people ask what happened to the rest of the chicken. The butcher shrugs and tells them that it went abroad to finance the economy through exports.”

GP: Did you meet Simone? What did you think of her role in Cioran’s life?

STEVE SILKIN: I did meet Simone. She was charming and soft-spoken and I could tell she was very supportive. They had a very easy rapport. At one point I needed to use the facilities and she accompanied me down the hall – they shared the toilet with the other residents of the top floor. The reason she went with me: She brought a tissue and wiped off the light switch before I touched it. She seemed slightly apologetic and slightly embarrassed; I interpreted it as kindness and consideration. I suppose she thought the hygiene of her neighbors was less than ideal and didn’t want me to catch anything.

GP: Did you see his home office or his working place, his writing table?

STEVE SILKIN: I am so glad you asked about his work space! It was a small room, under the slope of the roof. His small desk was under the slope, where you would not have been able to stand up. We had been chatting about some of our favorite writers, and I mentioned Fitzgerald. He was delighted. “I am just now revising a study I wrote about Fitzgerald for a collection,” and he brought me in to show me the essay and his work on it. (I now have it in a collection called “Exercises d’Admiration.”) The room was about 10 feet by 10, and to say it was a chaos of books would be an understatement. They were on shelves and knee-high stacks on the floor. Some of the stacks had collapsed, others were on the verge. There wasn’t much room to move. I loved it!

GP: In one of your articles on Cioran, you mention: “He wasn't reading fiction anymore, only biography. ‘I'm no longer interested in problems, only their outcomes,' he [Cioran] told me”. But aren’t all biographies fictional, to a large extent?

STEVE SILKIN: Most biographies, I think, are researched, and, through whatever prism, at least attempt some documentary value regardless of how incomplete and unreliable they might actually be. I suppose he felt that he had learned what he could from fiction and was looking to learn what he could from “fact.”

GP: Tell us how his “History and Utopia” got Cioran a Parisian apartment, by Odeon.

STEVE SILKIN: One of the most intense moments of our visit was when we discussed the idea that a writer could not survive in modern times. He said that the end of the affordable weekly hotel room rate meant the death of modern literature. So a writer’s survival was a real issue for him. I had told him I was reading “Histoire et Utopie” and was finding it difficult to get through. He told me it wasn’t his best book, but his favorite because of this: When he was looking for an apartment, he told a real estate agent that he was a writer, and she expressed some interest. So at their next visit, he gave her his book, “Histoire et Utopie.” She seemed to like it and got him his small but comfortable flat on the top floor of a building in the heart of the Left Bank.

GP: He signed a book for you with these memorable words: “Aux plus agreables des bourreaux.” How do you interpret his words?

STEVE SILKIN: Yes, he signed my copy of “Ecartlement” (“Drawn and Quartered”) with the dedication: “To the most agreeable of executioners.” After I had asked his publisher if I could meet him in order to write an article about his life and work, I was told that normally he did not grant interviews, but he would meet me because he was intrigued that a young American was interested in his writing. So I imagined he didn’t like talking about himself too much. So instead of diving right in, I mentioned I had the same gas radiators at my place, and we quickly agreed that they were incredibly efficient heaters for their size. During the course of the interview, he asked me to stay for lunch, which Simone served us. We sat talking for a while after that, and I think we were having a pretty good time. Hence the inscription, which is perfect Cioran, isn’t it? It’s one of my treasured possessions.

GP: Tell us a bit about your own trajectory as a writer. What happened next to the young man that lives in the pages of your collection of “Forbidden Stories”? What are you working on?

STEVE SILKIN: I struggled for years trying to write the stories that would make up my first two collections, “The Telescope Builder” and “Too Lucky.” I would write first drafts and tear them up. Again and again. Then I spent years not writing because I knew I wasn’t ready. Then I went to a seminar with some writing coaches and learned some things about word choices and sentence construction. Finally, I think I was able to use the right tools to evoke the emotions I was trying to communicate. As I was finishing those two collections, I wrote the novel, “The Cemetery Vote.” As I mentioned above, some of the work in “Forbidden Stories” is experimental: I pushed myself to go new places in both style and content. I’m now working on a book based on the life of a high school classmate. I didn’t know him, but I later learned he led the most extreme, transgressive, self-destructive existence I’ve heard of, at least of my generation. It is a challenge. His widow came for a visit from Israel last summer and I interviewed her about his strange, sad life and death. I have a stack of notes and I’m still deciding how to give them a voice. That will be another challenge of seeing “the tragic aspect of life.”

STEVE SILKIN was born in New York, grew up in Los Angeles, traveled across Europe and studied at La Sorbonne. He began his career in journalism at the International Herald Tribune in Paris, then returned to California, where he has been working as a reporter and editor since the late 1980s. He has stood at the edge of the Sahara and visited the Oracle at Delphi. But his finest moment was when he escaped arrest for trespassing in a skyscraper under construction by fleeing from the LAPD on his bicycle.

His books can be purchased in paperback format via amazon or lulu, and are also available for Kindle and other e-reading devices via Kindle store and smashwords.