Zef ZORBA
The literary significance of the poetic works of Zef Zorba (1920-1993) was only discovered after his death in January 1993. He has since joined the ranks of the great classics of Albanian poetry stifled by the communist regime.
Zef Zorba was born in Kotor in Montenegro of an Albanian family. He finished secondary school in Shkodra and studied political science at the University of Padua, beginning in1941. The events of the Second World War forced him to abandon his university education and to return to his native Shkodra in 1943, where he worked initially for a bank. From 1945-1946, he served as director of the House of Culture in Shkodra where he was responsible for the staging of plays which would soon be regarded as a threat to the new communist authorities, Juda Makabe by the proscribed Gjergj Fishta, and Henrik Ibsen’s En Folkefiende (Enemy of the People). It is perhaps for this reason that he was arrested in 1946 and charged with “agitation and propaganda.” Zorba spent the following years in labour and “re-education” camps until his release in 1951. He thereafter kept a low profile and worked as a modest bookkeeper for the Shkodra district administration until his retirement in 1980. Zef Zorba is the author of poetry, plays, libretti, essays and studies. Of his literary works, only one volume has been published, the thin, but much appreciated collection Buzë të ngrira në gaz, Tirana 1994 (Lips Frozen in Joy).
Zef ZORBA
Sombre this Path
Sombre this path. I cannot
Find my way without your
Light (what is this twinge?)
At the edge of the chasm
What lure and temptation,
Can’t you see how I teeter?
[I errët ky shteg, from the volume Buzë të ngrira në gaz, Tirana: Dituria, 1994, p. 6. Translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie]
A Moment, Poetry: Life
Light in the mist.
I discern your face, powdery snow,
Bashful and a slight smile
Like protoplasm “in vitro,”
But it is swallowed by this swirl of dryads,
Leaving naught but an inkling.
[Një çast, poezi: një jetë, from the volume Buzë të ngrira në gaz, Tirana: Dituria, 1994, p. 8. Translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie]
Yearning
On such nights
At Qafë-Hardhi
The shrubs
Are freckled
With the fancies
Of fireflies.
[Malle, from the volume Buzë të ngrira në gaz, Tirana: Dituria, 1994, p. 11. Translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie]
Feast Tonight
Feast tonight: rain and storm,
Thunder and winds from Lezha,
(no moon).
On the cement before me
The raindrops beat in fury,
The hail shatters like salt,
Oh cement, I’m like you.
[Sonte festë, from the volume Buzë të ngrira në gaz, Tirana: Dituria, 1994, p. 20. Translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie]
Like Swallows
The dusk now is hastily
Drenching my road,
(those lines of light have gone crazy somewhere).
Sorrow from my brain
Foams and floods
Into my weary limbs.
I pull at my leg, it drags behind.
Like swallows
The children of the neighbourhood
Wing along beside me,
Soaked with strength and joy.
[Si zogjë dallëndysheje, from the volume Buzë të ngrira në gaz, Tirana: Dituria, 1994, p. 21. Translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie]
The Gravel of the Kir
White gravel, bereft of light,
Where at nighttime, thousands
Of stars descend
Unheard.
Perhaps they are eyes,
The eyes of children
Who died of wonder.
[Zalli i Kirit, from the volume Buzë të ngrira në gaz, Tirana: Dituria, 1994, p. 23. Translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie]
Kruja
(seen from Fushë-Kruja by night)
A garland of daisies
On your sallow
Breast,
Oh my country.
[Kruja, from the volume Buzë të ngrira në gaz, Tirana: Dituria, 1994, p. 28. Translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie]
Roads in Autumn
Complex canyons
In which the wind raves,
Amassing on doorsteps
Billows of dead leaves,
Mad tales.
[Rrugët në vjeshtë, from the volume Buzë të ngrira në gaz, Tirana: Dituria, 1994, p. 43. Translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie]
Allegro Furioso
… and often I’ve seen the lake choppy
Against the low-lying clouds,
With savage bolts of thunder,
With incessant foaming sabres,
All the force within it
Assaulting and assailing,
And all the while the rain kept falling…
[Allegro furioso, from the volume Buzë të ngrira në gaz, Tirana: Dituria, 1994, p. 62. Translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie]
A Nail
A nail thrust knifelike into the wall, a nail
Thrust knifelike into the wall, a nail thrust,
A nail driven deep inside the wall, a nail
Driven deep inside the wall, a nail driven,
A nail left rusting in the wall, a nail
Left rusting in the wall, a nail left,
Thrust knifelike…
Driven deep…
Left rusting…
[Një gozdhë, from the volume Buzë të ngrira në gaz, Tirana: Dituria, 1994, p. 78. Translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie]