I used to hate her, foolish, a teenagerâs hate that can only be explained in a parallel universe where logic doesnât exist. I was a sixteen-year-old girl in a class with additional studies of mathematics. I was supposed to have the sharp brain, the emotion-free behavior required for someone who was a shining star in solving mathematical problems. Then suddenly there it was: the literature lesson about her and one of her poems I donât even remember. The teacher decided that I was the one who should talk about her that day because of the first name we shared. 
It was a disaster! I hadnât read a word from what was written in the school books about her and her poetry. When I was asked the question âWhat do you think Blaga Dimitrovaâs poem symbolizes?â all I could think about to answer was, “The only person who really knows what the words in a poem meant is the author herself. We, as readers, can interpret as we feel right and only hope weâve reached close enough the thoughts of the writer.â Wrong answer! A bunch of literature critics that wrote the school book of literature, had already decided what her poetry signified, just like they had decided what every other writer we had studied represents with their work.
I got a bad mark that day and I had come to a conclusion that no one should want to be a poet in a country where we are told what to think. The bad mark wasnât the worst. After the lesson everyone started calling me Dimitrova. I didnât like it, I could feel it was meant to be a joke with my personality; to label me with the weakness of feelings only poetry could carry because this is what I used to think about poetry and poets â weak people spilling their weaknesses⊠Ridiculous, isnât it? And who knew that I would become one of those weak people. Who knew that one day I would learn  to squander my emotions elegantly on a piece of paper and love doing it too?
At the same time Blaga Dimitrova was vice president of my country, Bulgaria. That was another reason to dislike her. I didn’t dislike her because she was in politics. Who was I to judge someone I have seen only on tv? I disliked Dimitrova because I couldn’t understand why a sane person would stand to support the President we had at that time, and I just couldnât understand why he was elected. I didnât know him either. I was way too naĂŻve and young to have the maturity to understand the political situation, but on his face was written all over “Iâm capable of nothing.”
When a year later Blaga Dimitrova resigned from her post as a Vice-President due to a disagreement with the President she gained my respect and with that come the urge to re-evaluate her poetry. It was a shock to find that I actually loved her style, her words. The first poem I read and understood from her was:
Tag
I keep forgetting my clock
to escape the time.
But it catches up with me and I whirl
with the whopping, falling leaves.
I enter the sea with the clock on my wrist
to drown the time.
But it slaps me in the face
with the bells of the foam.
Iâm not counting the beats of the pendulum;
I want to put the time away.
But it lands right on my nose
with the first snow.
At night I donât set the alarm
with the hope the time will stop.
But itâs waiting for me in the cold bed
with love already gone.
– Blaga Dimitrova
Then I read her novel Journey Toward Myself.  Itâs a book about a girl who tries to escape her past, which is not an easy task in the years of communism, especially if you were born in the wrong family. The message is rather strong and easy to apply to anyone of us. No matter how much we travel and how much we search for the person we are supposed to be, sometimes what we are meant to be is right there where we started our journey.
My favorite quote from Blaga Dimitrova’s book is: “I blessed him with a smile. It dissolved him completely. There was no need for words. I should have tried with a smile at first. I tend to forget that this is my most faithful weapon. I have never thought what impact a smile can have. Only here in the land of rocks and coarse people I found the strength of my smile. It’s worth to travel so far for such a discovery of your own possibilities.”
Itâs somewhat hard to explain Blaga Dimitrovaâs work and to try to extract a short conclusion that could fit into one review. There is always that special feeling left in the heart after you read her. Maybe thatâs why I grew very fond of her poems and stories over the years and maybe thatâs why itâs really difficult to fit everything I want to say about her in one blog post.
I can tell you that she comes from a family with professional parents. Her mother was a teacher and her father was a lawyer. She attended a roster of prestigious schools and gained an education that supported her talent. She was honored with many literature awards.
One of her books, Avalanche, was made into an acclaimed movie,  one of the best Bulgarian movies ever in my opinion. Some of Blaga Dimitrova’s work was forbidden in the 80s, because of the strong anti- communism touch. I could tell you that some people liked her and some not. Be it for her political views, be it for her writing, it doesnât matter to me. On the 2nd of May in 2003 after a long battle with cancer, Blaga Dimitrova died. She was eight-one years old.
I believe on that day Bulgaria lost a great talent. Many years have passed. I am no longer the sixteen-year-old girl who didnât know how to appreciate the good things in life. I have left Bulgaria for my own reasons and maybe I am still traveling towards myself to find who I really am. It hurts sometimes when I go back home to see that nothing from great people like Blaga Dimitrova was passed on to the new generation. Sometimes I still feel the burden of the shared name with the poetess, not because I am embarrassed to be connected to the weakness of poetry, but because I am afraid I will not be able to stand up worthy of the name Blaga like Ms. Dimitrova did with her talent. I love so many of Blaga Dimitrovaâs poems, itâs hard to choose the best, but this one I had written on my wall in the room where I was living during my years at University. It is the one I cherish most.
Lyrical
In the sunset of every love
occurs pain and sadness.
After sunset every night
comes darkness and silence.
When somebody leaves you,
you donât have the strength to stop him.
When you see that love dies
you canât die along with it.
You understand that the dreams have never been real
that you have loved, but there wasnât love,
that the memories are a pain that has fled already,
that you were happy, but you didnât notice it.
– Blaga Dimitrova
For everything I have translated in this post, there probably could be a better translation. Iâve said it many times, some poems are best to be read in the language they have been written, but I did the best I could. My thanks to The Bardo Group for the opportunity to share the story and poems of a great Bulgarian poetess with readers here in honor of interNational Poetry Month.
© 2014, essay, Blaga Todorova, All rights reserved
Photo credit ~ Merolina under CCA-SA 3.0 Unported license via Wikimedia Commons
BLAGA TODOROVA (Between the Shadows and the Soul)Â ~ was born in Bulgaria, lives in Greece and doesn’t stop dreaming about finding new country for herself. She doesn’t consider herself a writer, but just someone who sometimes is lucky enough to be at the right place, with the right person, with the background of the right music that will bring the right words. Blaga has been blogging for many years now and has won the friendship and following of other poets and writers for her insights, humor and sense of romance and of justice. English is not her first language, but she uses it well and it is her favorite language for her favorite artistic pursuit, writing. She has a novel in progress. She is also a rather accomplished photographer.
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