Tempus Fugit - the Morphou project

A percussionist, a photographer, two visual artists and a writer go on a coach trip to Morphou, Soli and ancient Vouni in the occupied north of Cyprus. Each is inspired by the trip in a different way.

We plan to present our combined artistic effort to the public in February 2016.

I am the writer. Watch this space.

And this is what happens when you don't meet Etgar Keret...

Click here to find out exactly what happened (or didn't happen) when I didn't meet Etgar Keret.

Please vote for my poem!

I don't normally ask people to do this, but please vote for my poem "Separation" and help me get to the next round in the Poetry World Cup. If, for any reason, the poll isn't letting you vote, just leave the name of the poem/country you'd like to vote for in the comments.

I will not win anything, it is only for fun.


http://themissingslate.com/2014/07/01/round-2-singapore-cyprus/#.U7JlELHc03V

THANKS

Poetic Victory

Poetic Victory

The Author and the Girl

The author’s life is full of knots and the girl’s eyes untie them.

One night in Ciechocinek the sky painted storms and his hands trembled, he was so fascinated by her. In the kitchen, the girl pounded cinnamon in a mortar. The world was incoherent but she made perfect sense of it. And when she did, everything smiled.

One morning, one wild morning, twenty years ago, she was born. Pogrebinsky, Mila. I insist: let me taste your lips, pat you, touch you, smell you, love you, because one day, light years from now, your  smile will have wrinkles, your lovely heart will be tame, said the author.  And I will be a tailor’s dummy.

You are phosphorescence and a crystal chandelier in my dreams, for now. And she smiles, even though she can’t hear him think. Her skirt looks amused.

Centuries later, they meet by Czarny Staw.

Could you move your face a little to one side, please? she asks. I think I know you. She speaks with a slight accent, clink, clink, clink, as delicate as porcelain.

He doesn’t know it yet, but this is the last day of his life.

I wrote a book about you, he tells her. But the story needs another page, another hour. The hero in the book is old, and he’s getting older. Can you put his younger face back on? There is also a crack in his heart which you must fill with plots without knots, cinnamon and rosewater, yellow evenings.

The girl (who is now a woman) understands. She has lived long and when the moment comes, when he is suddenly not there, not here, she tiptoes around his empty suit. She searches the pockets for words, paragraphs, pages. Finds nothing. Makes perfect sense of it all.

 

© Nora Nadjarian

I can't believe it's been almost a year...

It's been a strange year, with ups and downs and ups and downs. Isn't that the way life goes?

I haven't really been able to concentrate on blogging, but am pleased with some of my literary successes. Some are still pending, so I can't really announce them to the world.

I think the best thing that's happened in the past few months was being published in "World Literature Today", a beautiful journal.

Well, avanti con successo! Or whatever they say in Italian.

And the winner is...

I am delighted to announce that my poem "The Name" is the winner of the unFold 2012 Poetry Garden Show. Thank you to the judges

• William O’Daly, translator of the late and posthumous works of Pablo Neruda
• Jessie Carty, author of Paper House
• John Sibley Williams, author of From Colder Climates

And congratulations to the following poets, who received Honorable Mentions: dt.haase, Ben Nardolilli and Linda Leedy Schneider.

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The Name

I remembered the name of the lilac tree

years after you told me.

I’m sorry I never retained plant names.

Only shades, and shapes.

Our whitewashed wall was once my favourite

but even that is fading.

© Nora Nadjarian

You can watch the beautiful animation they made of my winning poem here: