Revival

POET SURVIVOR
AND
REVIVAL OF THE SONNET

Uran Kostreci

Uran Kostreci, after nine years living in America, went to Albania to promote his new book Sonnets. There are sixty-six sonnets, a genre nearly forgotten, which remind readers of the genuine nature of writing in verse.


by Oliverta Lila

The burning desire to travel through stanzas of poetry began for Uran Kostreci, dissident poet, when he was behind bars in the notorious Burreli communist prison in Albania. The intellectual spent twenty years in jail because of his strong anti-communist beliefs.
To “make use of time,” Kostreci mastered the Italian language, which made it possible for him to understand the bona fide art of Francesco Petrarca, Giosue Carducci and other famous Italian masters of poetry. He began to translate the poems. From the very first poems, Kostreci would marvel at the splendor of their beauty, a sacred feeling that the communist guards could not imprison.

“I read enough of the famous Italian poets to understand where the limit of beauty in art lies. Therefore, it is essential to read great poets in their own language,” says the poet. He recounts how he spent much of his restricted time translating the inspiring sonnets, which later would be confiscated by communist prison guards.

“I did not write sonnets while in prison, but I did translate from Petrarca and Carducci. All of my translations disappeared without a trace; if they had been spared, they would form a large volume today. The act of translating made the sonnet diagram be absorbed into my bloodstream. Every time something stirs within me, I write it down, almost without knowing that it will take shape as a sonnet,” he relates. Kostreci realizes that writing a sonnet is challenging, but he says, “If you succeed in expressing everything within the fourteen required lines, the sonnet converts into music.”

The poet still has vivid memories of the unspeakable prison cell. “The most evil thing was, though you were allowed to translate, at the end of the month, prison guards would come, seize, and destroy everything you had done. We tried in vain to hide our work in coal sacks or hiding places. Three months was the greatest extent of time you could hide something. They searched everywhere, and you could say nothing to stop them. Even when the sonnet simply expressed a love sentiment, you were not able to save it; guards cast doubts on everything, though they never took the time to read one line. Thanks to my photographic memory, I was able to remember my satirical poem, ‘The Epopee of the Grasshopper,’ which I could publish in 1995, when I was out of prison,” recalls the poet.

“My sonnets are my life story, not always told in a chronological order. They are my impressions, an accumulated love,” says the poet. His sonnets contain lyric, nostalgia, agony and sometimes rebellion. They were composed in moments of inspiration, and later he gave the needed refining touches. “I never let the moment slip away. Everyone has euphoric moments; they do not last long, and they are very few in life. But there are also moments of depression and melancholy. I put my feelings in writing the way they come to me, through the moment. Later, I get into details.”

However, after all these years there is still bitterness that stirs his spirit. “I spent most of my life in prison. I was not able to create a relationship and have a family. A marriage in old age for the sake of marriage was unacceptable for me,” says the poet.

Sonnets is composed of sixty-six poems, crafted by Kostreci during a period of fifteen years. Most of the sonnets were written after his arrival to America in 1997, when he was granted political asylum.


Last Will to Ancient Plain Tree

Someday olden plain tree, away I’ll fade
Whereas in centuries you will be in sight;
Twice a year the outfit you will trade:
In summertime green, and in winter white.

The dark blue sky, and green whispering plain
Sparkling under the sunbeam golden light,
The flying birds and breezy wooded lane
I will no more admire, once I have died.

You will remain after I depart this life
Beside you buried I desire to be,
My bones over your roots I want to lie;

My death you will mourn with sighs olden tree,
Each dawn falling leaves my grave beautify
For no one flowers will place there for me.

——Uran Kostreci


Vloçishti Swamp

By slave labor were you sullen marsh drained
Alive too many were digged into!
Morass to graveyard reduced, and chained,
By blood and human bones, stiffened were you.

What charm and magic this morning you gained
Rich soil, where healthy sugar beets grew,
Although in clods, birds peck at bones, remained!
But when tourists come, are they let known, too?

By slaves of free word was gloomy swamp dried
With hands, famished and scantily dressed;
On knees crawling, in mud entirely tied

Into marsh sunk, they slush out the ditch cast;
Bleeding by canebrake and sore leeches bite,
Under guards’ cudgel severely repressed!...

——Uran Kostreci


Translated from The Albanian by Hilda M. Xhepa
Edited by Elizabeth B. Coffey