City Lights Bookstore For Silvia Choleva<\/em><\/p>\n we’re all Bernie<\/strong><\/p>\n And we talked A Bulgarian Rose<\/strong><\/p>\n There’s got to be Translated by Angela Rodel.<\/em><\/p>\n ABOUT THE AUTHOR<\/strong> Then he asked me By Ivan Hristov<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":155,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[484,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-maintenant","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/155"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52639\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nSan Francisco<\/p>\n
\nstanding
\nin that dingy
\nand slightly stuffy
\npoetry room
\nwe’re silent
\nwaiting
\nto see whether
\nany of us
\nwill leave<\/p>\n
\nabout the difference
\nbetween Catholicism
\nand Protestantism,
\nand he confided in me
\ntheir wish
\nto see women
\npriests
\nand for gays
\nto be accepted
\nby the church.
\nThen he asked me
\nhow things were with us.
\nI told him
\nthat our
\nChristianity
\nwas more conservative
\nand more mystical,
\nand that we don’t
\ntalk much
\nabout our problems.
\nHe was amazed.
\nI didn’t dare
\ntell him
\nthat for 45 years
\nwe didn’t have God at all
\nand that now we were
\nhappy
\nsimply
\nto pray.<\/p>\n
\nsomething Bulgarian,
\nI kept saying to myself,
\nthere’s got to be
\nsomething Bulgarian
\nin this city.
\nI wandered through the streets
\nand galleries\u2026
\nAt the science museum
\nI heard Bulgarian spoken,
\nbut that’s not it,
\nI said to myself,
\nand like every Bulgarian
\nabroad
\nI turned away.
\nUntil, suddenly,
\nat the Walker Art Center
\nI saw it \u2013
\na Bulgarian
\nrose.
\nRight there,
\nbetween Andy Warhol
\nand Yoko Ono,
\na Bulgarian
\nrose
\nwith the sign:
\nChristo.
\nWrapped
\nin silk,
\nsuch that
\nit could
\nbe seen
\nyet at the same
\ntime
\nnot prick.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/Ivan_Hr.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nThe poet, critic and performance artist Ivan Hristov<\/strong> (b. 1978) graduated in Bulgarian literature at Sofia University in 2001 and defended his PhD in Bulgarian Modernism at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in 2008. His first book of poetry, Farewell to the 19th Century<\/em> (2001) won the prestigious 2002 Southern Spring award for the best debut book. His second collection, Bdin<\/em> (2004) received critical acclaim, as well as the 2006 Svetlostrui Prize for poetry. His work has been translated into English, French, Turkish, Greek, Hebrew, Romanian, Serbian, Croatian and Hungarian. Ivan has participated in numerous poetry festivals abroad. He is also a leading literary critic of his generation with numerous academic publications; his book-length research study, The Sagittarius Circle and the Concept of the Native<\/em>, won the Bulgarian Ministry of Culture’s National Culture Fund competition and was published in 2010. In 2011 one of his poems from Bdin<\/em> was selected for inclusion in the prestigious American anthology of literature in translation, Two Lines. Since 2010, Ivan Hristov has been a member of the organizational committee for the international Sofia Poetics festival. He currently works as a researcher at the Institute of Literature of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/IvanHr2preview.jpg\" "\\"IvanHr2preview\\"")
<\/p>\n
\nhow things were with us.
\nI told him
\nthat our
\nChristianity
\nwas more conservative
\nand more mystical,
\nand that we don’t
\ntalk much
\nabout our problems.
\nHe was amazed.
\nI didn’t dare
\ntell him
\nthat for 45 years
\nwe didn’t have God at all<\/p>\n