photo: Milen Slavov

Daniela Nyberg's new collection of poems is entitled "In the City of Salvation", but the verses in it are so influential that the book can easily be called "Poetry of Salvation". Poetry in principle has the power to influence in many different ways, depending on the purpose of the author. Some (especially younger) authors usually look for an element of surprise, scandal, and sometimes cruelty, even disgust on the part of the reader when confronted with the truth and frankness of the text.

 

For Daniela, however, the impact is on a different spiritual level. The poems in the book radiate such all-encompassing peace of mind that they create a sense of universal peace for all mankind. These are poems written at the end of the summer of this difficult year for everyone, and for an unusually short time - between August 29 and September 10. It is difficult to imagine that in just 13 days a poet can have so many moments of penetration that a whole book can be compiled from them. But the fact that the place of writing is Sozopol, this so extraordinary seaside town, in which the soul seems to fall into another dimension, explains this over-concentration of inspiration.

And to convince you of everything I say, I share a few poems from the book. But before that, I invite you to the premiere, which will take place online on December 6 at 21 pm Bulgarian time here.

 

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Daniela has prepared an extremely insightful musical-poetic performance together with the composer Lyudmil Krumov, who wrote music especially for the verses, turning them into musical stories. We will hear the voice of Daniela, who seems to be creating the verses here and now, instead of reciting them. And here are a few snippets from In the City of Salvation.

 

Each poem has its own music, which somehow attracts the reader and makes him float in his rhythm, falling into a beautiful parallel world, in which the moment becomes eternity and eternity becomes bliss. Waves, ethereally gentle sunrises, untouched mussels, midnight rock in the bar next door, ritual immersion in the sea water - all these elements of the perfect holiday are even more important when written on the sheet. And suddenly time is hiding somewhere, body and spirit are indefinite, if I try to name it, I will certainly make a mistake, but in any case, bringing the lightness of a finally happy being, enough to saturate all the senses . These are verses about all the small, barely noticeable wonders in the world and our short existence, which somehow escape the eye, and they are the pearls worth living for.

***

 

The sea itself
The very immersion of the toes
The immersion itself
in a world of tides
mini human life
Sisyphus horizontal
is already a prologue to a verse
or at least
bucket start
on a sunny day
in the end
in the summer.

 

 

***

 

September
Sunrise
Last night's rock
At the Jinny Bar
Fresh coffee
A really fresh one
Home
Ritual melting
Without going inside
And prayers to cope with the world
With what it is
And that
Which it will be

 

In fact, the verse came first
I'm writing it now
Happy
And wet.

 

 

***

 

This place feeds me
with figs and verses
for so many years
And so I'm used to it
with the Apollonian gifts
And so I want them
that in September
I am alone in the sea
thirsty
its tide.

 

 

***

 

To land a verse with you
you have to get up early
to open the window
to look around
for the thin silver wings
butterflies
to admire…

 

And will a new verse come to you?
or wings touched others
remains a secret
An unsolved miracle.

 

Daniela Ivanova-Naiberg was born in Sofia in 1963. She graduated in Bulgarian philology, philosophy and culturology at Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski ”. He has a choreographic specialty from the Institute of Music and Choreography in Sofia, and a doctorate (ethnochoreology) from the Institute for the Study of Arts - BAS (2010). Asecond е of the poetry collections "Smell of Water" - in Bulgarian and English (2004; 2005), "The Last Sunday of September ”(2011) and“ In the Ear of the Shell ”(2016), as well as the study“ The Composition for Folk Dances as a Cultural Phenomenon in Bulgaria ”(2011). Since 2010 he has lived in the United States, where he works actively with Bulgarian cultural organizations in Seattle and Portland. He lectures at various institutes, participates in international scientific forums, publishes articles, essays and poems. He is the founder of the "Glagolnitsa" - a society for poetry and literary prose.

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