Poems by Katica Kјulavkova 

My Passions, My Sufferings

(epistles to Julia, the daughter of Gaius Julius Octavianus,
inspired by the historical fiction Augustus by John Williams)
                                            
Epistle N. 6
                                                              
Where ever you are now, Julia
you aren’t you on your own terms
you are turned into a yearning
into a shadow, a dream and a daydream
into an apparition and a spectre
into a half-human and, why not -
a half-woman
obsessed by nostalgia and melancholy
by melancholy and nostalgia
 
Sometimes you are standing quietly in front of the house
and you are breaking a black, round bread
which smells of earth
earth which smells of truffles
truffles which smell of love
and of the lusciousness of a lover
 
not any lover, Julia
but the adored one
the one after whom comes the Flood
and nothing less than a Flood;
 
Sometimes you are sitting by the window
with a view on the sea, facing East
early before dawn
waiting for the sunrise
             always a bit more to the South or to the North
             on the horizon, depending on the season
 
you are waiting for the sunrise as if expecting a Deity
without which life would go
to hell, Julia
          (though it already isn’t a life, isn’t it?)

And I am watching you, without blinking, from Macedonia
- a province then, a province now.
Once real, now imaginary.
 
 
 
Translated from Macedonian by Jasmina Ilievska Marjanovic

 
Epistle N. 7
 
The sights rise in me from somewhere deep
and follow up in order:
 
I see you gazing
up at the sky, in the line of the horizon
down at the sea, below the horizon
 
that sea which has a name
but it is no longer important
         - a sea is a sea -
the expansive sea is ideal for meditation
to let yourself disappear in it
in the deepest of the deep
          (this is how I feel like saying sometimes
          when I surrender to the sight
          like to destiny, without remainder)
 
I am observing you as you sit, propped up on your elbows,
at the window sill, so like Iphigenia
mythically, ascetically, poetically
 
while you are staring and can’t get sated with looking
at the invisible, there where Jullus Antonius
yes, exactly he, both yours and not-yours
waits for you to come out from the bath
naked and wet like a spring
quivery like the genesis
 
then, he puts the bathrobe on your shoulders
           warm from his palms
           smelly from his crouch
           playful from his embraces
           dewy from your orgasms
           and spasms
Julia, Julia, Iulia, iuia, you,
July summer heat, scorched, yet just sprouted! 
                                                                                         
Translated from Macedonian by Jasmina Ilievska Marjanovic
 
 
 
 
Notes:
​Julia the Elder, known as Julia Caesaris filia, IVLIA AVGVSTI FILIA (30 October 39 BC – AD 14), is the daughter of Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus (Augustus Caesar, 23.09.63 BC – 19.08.14 AD, the first Emperor of the Roman Empire) and Scribonia (his second wife). She was sentenced to exile in 2 BC for the rest of her life (16 years). Five of those years she spent on the small island Pandateria.

In the original (Јулија, Јулиа, Иулиа, иуиа | јулска жего, ожегната, а штотуку жугната!) after the assonance with the name Julia in English and in Latin, the author finds consonance with the sound /ȝ/ in the Macedonian words жега (heat), ожегната (scorched), жугната (sprouted) in correlation with associations for Julia and the month of July. In English we found consonance with the sound /s/ in this context.

Katica Kјulavkova (1951) – writer and academic. She has published over sixty books of poetry, short fiction, essays, both as an author and editor. Some of her academic and literary works have been translated into English. She worked as a professor at the Department of General and Comparative Literature, Blazhe Koneski Faculty of Philology, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje. She is a full member of the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts, member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, and serves as the Vice President of PEN International. Her poetry has been translated into more than ten languages. Katica Kjulavkova is a recipient of the most important awards for poetry and criticism in Macedonia, including the state award for life's work. She is a member of the Macedonian Writers’ Association.

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