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illuminating only those who leave.
What emanates from inside is our demise —
grass spreading over the rib cage
of an old metal-frame chest.
The poem above also demonstrates one of
Lleshanaku’s most powerful modes: her ability
to include a variety of impulses into one poem
and her insistence on truth work to create
unflinching yet poignant love poems. In fact, on
the back of the book, Allen Grossman directly
writes, “She is a love poet.” And indeed her
talents seem particularly suitable for a love lyric
that is audacious in both its hope and candor.
After reading Fresco, I am convinced that
Lleshanaku has a permanent place in English
letters. The appeal of Lleshanaku’s poetry to
translators is shown in the number of translators
included in this little volume. No fewer than
nine translators came together to create the
sixty-seven pages of poetry in the book. These
translations show that she is an excellent
candidate for future translations, and in fact a
second book of her poetry is scheduled to come
out soon.
To return to my initial point at the beginning
of this review, these translations stand on their
own as excellent poems in the English language;
they do not feel stilted, and they carry the voice
of a truly talented poet. Therefore, I hope that
future reviewers and critics will focus more
on Lleshanaku’s poetry and not fall to the
temptation of simply framing her in Albania’s
atrocious history. The richness of this first
book of translated poems is enough to win the
admiration of a diverse audience, and I highly
recommend it, and the volume to come. v
Buçpapaj, Mujë.
Fitorja e Padukshme: Poezi/
The Invisible Victory: Poems.
Bilingual Edition. Translation
by Ukë Zenel .Buçpapaj.
Introduction by Laura Bowers.
2007. 167 pp. Paper $10.00.
ISBN 0-9728521-7-4.
Laura Bowers, Reviewer
. . . The river’s memory
Hiding in the smell of leaves . . .
If you know what it feels like to be home, Mujë
Buçpapaj’s The Invisible Victory will break
your heart. It is a beautiful, intimate portrait of
a people and a landscape torn by war — and
of the scars that remain. Buçpapaj becomes
the haunting voice of multitudes, both living
and dead, who experienced the war in Kosovo,
and he focuses on the connection between the
men, women, and children and their homeland.
The poems that constitute The Invisible Victory
are the jagged, glittering fragments of the
poet’s heart lying raw and scattered between
nations. The human spirit is what unifies the
poems — the longing for home as it once was
and for people who are now lost — and the
utter sadness in knowing it is only a memory.
The brokenness reflects the hearts of the poet’s
brothers and sisters — of friends, families,
enemies, and what is human in each of us. All
suffered together; they were and are unified in
their pain, and pain and brokenness are part of
what unifies The Invisible Victory.
The book begins with suffering and ends
with its prospect, a final poem consisting of
prophesy and history interwoven. The most
prominent emotion in the book is the poet’s
sadness, and his is the sadness of nations. The
most intimate emotion, however, is the poet’s
sheer determination to preserve the freedom
of expression for the good of all nations. In
Translation Review 77