Poetry Travels with Anna Blasiak and Lisa Kalloo: HARLEQUIN by Arjola Zadrima, translated by Vlora Konushevci

I am the wife of one who doesn't know me
doesn’t know that my dreams 
raise the souls of the dead.
I am the first and last mother of my son.

My daughter's palisade.
I was the lover of men who don't exist,
and don’t know how to cross a mountain in a breath.

To those who loved me I gave 
only a poem.
Bohemian, bound to the fates.
Frantic, omen of my own fate.
I was, I am and I will be
the one who kills herself,
not to become the harlequin of dramas
without an author.

I'm a shameless woman,
who has sown love's seed right in her belly.
I die and come alive
mother of my son.

Arjola Zadrima

Translated by Vlora Konushevci

Arjola Zadrima was born in Shkodra in 1979. She published her first volume of poetry, A ban me m’lshue pak rruge, in 2016; Carpe Diem is a 2018 collection of poetry and photography. She studied Language and Literature at Luigj Gurakuqi University. She works as a journalist at Radio Shkodra. She won many literary prizes, for example Penda e Kristalte Prize in Munich awarded by the International Institute for the Protection of Cultural Gege and Toske.

Vlora Konushevci was born in Kosovo. She completed her studies in English language and literature at the University of Prishtina, where she continued her master’s studies in linguistics. She published her first book of verse, Lavdi Vetes (2019), supported by Kosovo’s Ministry of Culture. She compiled and translated Poetry without borders, a bilingual anthology of Balkan poets (Albanian and Serbian); this project was supported by the UN mission in Kosovo. She is a fierce advocate of equality and has written numerous articles for national newspapers on this subject. She is the author of the lyrics of the song “Ajo asht ba,” which has launched the “16 days of activism” campaign against violence against women organized by UN agencies in Kosovo. Winner of many awards including the Poetry for Peace award organized by KultPlus and UN Women, Konushevci’s poems and translations have been published in many literary magazines and cultural portals in Kosovo and abroad. She is a part of the Alternative War anthology, published by B Cubed Press (2021, USA) and was also published in Songs of Eretz Poetry Review (2021, USA). In 2019 she established the online platform www.poetetshqiptare.com, where approximately 100 Albanian women poets are presented. In January 2022, she published a bilingual (Albanian and English) anthology of 30 Albanian women poets under the title Magma, a project supported by Kosovo’s Ministry of Culture.

Photo by Lisa Kalloo

Check out the Poetry Travels book list on bookshop.org.

Read previous poems in the Poetry Travels series:

SIRENS by Victoria Amelina, translated by Anatoly Kudryavitsky

JOB: A WOMAN by Dominika Lewicka-Klucznik, translated by Anna Blasiak

BAGS by Blerina Rogova Gaxha, translated by Vlora Konushevci

TONGUEFISH by Yolanda Castaño, translated by Keith Payne

WHAT DO YOU NEED by Friederike Mayröcker, translated by Christina Daub

A WORK OF BIOGRAPHY by Max Jacob, translated by Ian Seed

UNTITLED POEM by Ivano Fermini, translated by Ian Seed

AGAINST TRAVEL. FOR DANA by Rachel Levitsky

LIGHT by Vasyl Makhno, translated by Olena Jennings