Albanian poet shares latest collection
January 25, 2010 by Amy Woodward
Black Mountain Institute welcomes Luljeta Lleshanaku
“There’s so much hugging in here!” laughed Carol Harter, executive director of the Black Mountain Institute, during her introduction for Albanian poet Luljeta Lleshanaku.
Lleshanaku, surrounded by friends and colleagues, was welcomed to Las Vegas for the reading of her most recent collection of poems, “Child of Nature.”
“I feel very emotional, very touched being back in Las Vegas… It’s my favorite city,” Lleshanaku said.
The poet, International Women’s Forum Fellow and winner of the prestigious Kristal Vilenice Prize, had previously received a nine-month residency from BMI.
During those nine months, she was able to focus on her work and thanked both BMI and UNLV for the opportunity.
Carol Harter described Lleshanaku,’s work as “vivid, bold, sometimes actually linguistically shocking.”
Having lived under a totalitarian regime in Albania, Lleshanaku was deprived of a college education until the fall of communism in the early nineties.
Her poetic themes include the tangible things denied to those living under oppressive governments, like land and opportunity. Within these themes are the less tangible, including individuality and expression.
Noting the value of self-expression, Lleshanaku said, “We only need somebody to hear us. We only need somebody to tell our stories [to].”
Lleshanaku began with a dark poem, “They Hastened to Die.” She introduced it by explaining how war and adversity can forge strong family bonds:
“We faced together, we suffered together.”
In her next poem, “Self Portrait in Silica,” the poet explored the process and motives for creating art. A line in the poem declares: “I will have a voice, a color.”
Banned books, known as “yellow books,” are also a subject for her poetry. Before reading her poem “Yellow Book,” Lleshanaku explained how many authors’ works were forbidden in Albania. She listed a few censored authors, including Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy. The books were still circulated in secret.
“If you eat books, you will eat yourself, little by little,” Lleshanaku said.
Lleshanaku prefaced “Prisoners” with a discussion about freedom. The poem itself asks “what is freedom?”
Lleshanaku said the lack of choice is in and of itself a form of liberty. She quoted the French existentialist philosopher and author Jean-Paul Sartre: “Never were we as free as under the German occupation.”
Having lived under both totalitarian and democratic governments, Lleshanaku was able to provide insight into both of these.
During the question and answer segment at the conclusion of the lecture, Lleshanaku was asked, “When you choose to write about a memory, what happens to it?”
She answered, “[My poems] are a synthesis of different memories… I inherited the unfulfilled life of my parents. Everything is written inside me too.”
To craft one of her poems, she uses a combination of personal recollection and imagination.
Lleshanaku acknowledged the difficulty of preserving nuance when translating a poem from Albanian to English. In her second book, she experienced difficulty in translating Albanian metaphors into English. Additionally, “English syntax doesn’t give the same tension.”
When asked what language she dreams in, Lleshanaku replied by asking, “Do I need a language to dream?”
Christopher Seelie, a graduate student studying poetry, commented after her reading, “I found a curious combination of an almost family memoir quality… public quality [and] public consciousness.”
January 25, 2010 by Amy Woodward
Black Mountain Institute welcomes Luljeta Lleshanaku
“There’s so much hugging in here!” laughed Carol Harter, executive director of the Black Mountain Institute, during her introduction for Albanian poet Luljeta Lleshanaku.
Lleshanaku, surrounded by friends and colleagues, was welcomed to Las Vegas for the reading of her most recent collection of poems, “Child of Nature.”
“I feel very emotional, very touched being back in Las Vegas… It’s my favorite city,” Lleshanaku said.
The poet, International Women’s Forum Fellow and winner of the prestigious Kristal Vilenice Prize, had previously received a nine-month residency from BMI.
During those nine months, she was able to focus on her work and thanked both BMI and UNLV for the opportunity.
Carol Harter described Lleshanaku,’s work as “vivid, bold, sometimes actually linguistically shocking.”
Having lived under a totalitarian regime in Albania, Lleshanaku was deprived of a college education until the fall of communism in the early nineties.
Her poetic themes include the tangible things denied to those living under oppressive governments, like land and opportunity. Within these themes are the less tangible, including individuality and expression.
Noting the value of self-expression, Lleshanaku said, “We only need somebody to hear us. We only need somebody to tell our stories [to].”
Lleshanaku began with a dark poem, “They Hastened to Die.” She introduced it by explaining how war and adversity can forge strong family bonds:
“We faced together, we suffered together.”
In her next poem, “Self Portrait in Silica,” the poet explored the process and motives for creating art. A line in the poem declares: “I will have a voice, a color.”
Banned books, known as “yellow books,” are also a subject for her poetry. Before reading her poem “Yellow Book,” Lleshanaku explained how many authors’ works were forbidden in Albania. She listed a few censored authors, including Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy. The books were still circulated in secret.
“If you eat books, you will eat yourself, little by little,” Lleshanaku said.
Lleshanaku prefaced “Prisoners” with a discussion about freedom. The poem itself asks “what is freedom?”
Lleshanaku said the lack of choice is in and of itself a form of liberty. She quoted the French existentialist philosopher and author Jean-Paul Sartre: “Never were we as free as under the German occupation.”
Having lived under both totalitarian and democratic governments, Lleshanaku was able to provide insight into both of these.
During the question and answer segment at the conclusion of the lecture, Lleshanaku was asked, “When you choose to write about a memory, what happens to it?”
She answered, “[My poems] are a synthesis of different memories… I inherited the unfulfilled life of my parents. Everything is written inside me too.”
To craft one of her poems, she uses a combination of personal recollection and imagination.
Lleshanaku acknowledged the difficulty of preserving nuance when translating a poem from Albanian to English. In her second book, she experienced difficulty in translating Albanian metaphors into English. Additionally, “English syntax doesn’t give the same tension.”
When asked what language she dreams in, Lleshanaku replied by asking, “Do I need a language to dream?”
Christopher Seelie, a graduate student studying poetry, commented after her reading, “I found a curious combination of an almost family memoir quality… public quality [and] public consciousness.”
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