*****

Petar Tchouhov is one of the leading contemporary Bulgarian poets and a winner of many national and international awards. His poetry is laconic and aphoristic, with clear images, bright, well balanced and memorable metaphors, and a sharp and ironic gaze, highly sensitive to the unusual and the grotesque. He is the author of twelve collections of poetry, a novel, two collections of short stories and a children’s book, as well as being a musician who often incorporates some of his poems in rock songs together with his bands.

*****

Copies of Petar’s collection, Taming Space, can be purchased by following the link to Bulgata .

*****

This is what critics have been saying about Petar’s poems:

In this collection, Taming Space, Petar has excelled himself, developing his capacity for whimsy, affection and detailed perception. In particular, he contemplates the humorous and the bizarre in people’s actions, foibles, and obsessions, where irony trips over compassion, draws your breath in as surely as a slice of lemon, and the narratives twist and turn and take you into unexpected places. Often using a deceptively simple language, these poems are elegant, enigmatic, remorseless, and very funny.
Morelle Smith

Is it because he’s a musician (as well as being a poet and a haikuist) that Petar Tchouhov communicates with such skill and ease in an age when many poets seem to have given up on communication?
Gabriel Rosenstock

There is no one else in Bulgarian poetry from the beginning of the 21st century whose writing works so carefully on the turning of everyday sights and situations into notional heights and abysses.
Plamen Doynov

In Taming Space Petar Tchouhov has carved a whimsical response to the haunting disappointments of life. His poems are as delicate, mysterious and thought-provoking as dreams.
Helen Soraghan Dwyer

*****

Petar Tchouhov: Twelve Poems from Taming Space
Translated by Tom Phillips

STEAMPUNK

The buffalos are sitting
in the meadow by the village –
history’s
abandoned locomotives
An old man
and an old woman
quarrel in the yard
of the last house
beside the remains of their love –
a rusty Moskvitch
that long ago stopped
moving
From its nest on the roof
a stork lifts off
like a stream of smoke
above a ship
The granddaughter peeks
sleepily through the window
takes a sip of coffee
the colour of petrol
lights her first cigarette
of the day
and slowly begins
to peel
a clockwork apple

***

The headstone
of my father
rises like an iceberg
from the Dead Sea
a half-metre of it
is visible
the invisible part
is in me

***

FAMILY TREE

It happens –
from the strongest branch
someone
hangs themselves

***

Oh, how well I remember that sound –
the last tram passing
on Ivan Asen Street.
Really, the last one –
tomorrow they’ll tear out the rails
and the wires.
The cars will be sovereign lords
of the paving stones
and pensioners will
look round timidly
while they cross,
though the newsstands at the stops
will decline
and melt away.
Yes, I remember
how I heard that sound
in that empty apartment alone
and I realised:
until yesterday the night was short –
between the last tram
and the first,
and now –
it is without end.

VISITING CARDIFF CASTLE

The tour guide – sumptuous as a childhood dream –
led us to the clock tower,
where time was turning with a dancer’s step,
curtseying to the visitors,
then hiding behind curtains
in embarrassment.
With regret the woman explained how
even the most delicate beam of sunlight
could light up the walls like a golden beacon,
but that God rarely
made such a gift.
Dazed by the gloom in her voice,
I looked out through a window –
I saw how the rain ran through the grass in green
shoes
and how the clouds could hardly catch it.

SOFTLY

I know dangerously little
about love
Even though I’ve taken her
to the movies
removed
her shades
put gifts
beneath her pillow
Once I lived with her
for two whole years
in a birdhouse
but she flew off
Even so I think
we were closest
that night
when I dreamt of her
with my head
on the fur
of a dog
which wasn’t
even mine

***

The ants
that live
under my skin
quietly
multiply
quietly
die
is there anyone
to baptise them
is there anyone
to mourn for them
is there anyone
to calculate
if they’re increasing
or decreasing
and will at least one
remain
to crawl over me
when you lay
your hands on me

CHOICE

I want to stand
on the right side
of the camera
upon such a thing depends
whether her face will be in the sun
for the next couple of decades
whether her smile will take to the wind
that plays with her skirt
or stay as warm
as a house cat
at arm’s length
whether the gesture with which she fixes her hair
will fall from the book which I’m reading
in the evening before I go to sleep
or sometime when my eyes fade
like batteries
I’ll think “God, who has seen me
so beautiful”

***

She
who shouted
took my hearing away
She
who whispered
gave it back to me

EXPLANATION

I am a dangerous
charmer.
I cover dry trees
with blossom
but they come
and cut them down.
I cover white bones
with flesh
but they come
and murder them.
I cover dark suns
with drawings
but they come
and blow them apart.
That’s why I will not
touch you.

SUNDAY SERMON

All of us
loving ourselves too much
to kill ourselves
and too frightened
to kill another
languish in the shadow
of murder all our lives.
Look at our
distorted frames,
protrusions
of helpless beauty
that make us
uglier still.
In vain we raise
our eyes above,
in vain we fold
our hands in prayer –
so we will live
and one day
like lightning happiness
will pierce us
while we’re swatting
a fly.

WHEN THERE’S NO SNOW
OR
CHILDHOOD OSSIFIES

Where there’s no snow
the games change –
instead of snowmen
we build memorials
instead of snowballs
we throw stones
instead of sleds
we descend
in rollercoasters
and when we fall
what remains
after our bodies
aren’t snow angels
but tombstones

Tom Phillips was born and spent most of his adult life in the UK, but now lives and works as a writer, translator and teacher in Sofia, Bulgaria. His poetry has appeared in a wide range of journals and anthologies, as well as the full-length collections Unknown Translations (Scalino, 2016), Recreation Ground (Two Rivers Press, 2012) and Burning Omaha (Firewater 2003). Since moving to Sofia, he has published four online pamphlets: Scenes from Unfilmed Cinema (2021), And Now Rousing Music (2020), Foreign in Europe (2019), Present Continuous (2018) – which can be downloaded from his blog.

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