Poetry, Translations

I Don't Believe in Ghosts

The poems in I Don’t Believe in Ghosts come from Meduza, a collection Zeqo wrote roughly between 1970-1974, that challenged some of the core tenets of Albanian Socialist Realism. After Zeqo had published a few cycles of poems from the book-in-progress, his work was denounced as “hermetic, with modern influences, dangerous, [and] foreign” at the Fourth Plenary Session of the Albanian Communist Party, and the book was suppressed until 1995, after the collapse of the Albanian communist system. Today, Zeqo lives with his wife, the prominent archaeologist Lida Miraj, in Tirana and works as a freelance writer and journalist. In 2001, he was awarded one of Albania’s highest honors--the order “Mjeshtër i Madh i Punës,” which roughly translates, “Important Master of His Field.” “Great art is timeless, and there is plenty of it here.” --West Branch

“The Miracle of Death”

The miracle of death is precise like the law.
Our bodies will decompose in their natural elements.
Perhaps we’ll meet as underground streams,
as humus and salt at the roots of a plant
that will flourish and open its petals,
astounding everything with its anonymous beauty.
Our bones will blossom . . . .
But the souls?
poor aerial creatures, they’ll wander the clouds,
forever separate and never whole.

FormatPaperback , Hardcover

Publication DateNovember 1, 2007

ISBN978-1-934414-00-2

From $21.95

About the Author

Moikom Zeqo

Moikom Zeqo is the author of more than 60 collections of poetry including I Don't Believe in Ghosts (2007) translated from the Albanian by Wayne Miller. Zeqo has also published novels and short stories, children's books, monographs and scholarly articles on Albanian history, archaeology and literature. His work has been translated into more than a dozen languages. Albania's former Minister of Culture, Zeqo currently lives in Tirana, where for a number of years he directed the National Historical Museum, and where he now works as a freelance writer and journalist.

Wayne Miller

Wayne Miller is the author of the poetry collection Only the Senses Sleep (New Issues, 2006), and a chapbook, What Night Says to the Empty Boat (Notes for a Film in Verse) (Greentower, 2005). He is also coeditor of the anthology The New European Poets (Graywolf, 2008). He has received the George Bogin Memorial Award, the Lucille Medwick Memorial Award, a Ruth Lilly Fellowship, and the Bess Hokin Prize. His poetry has appeared in numerous literary publications, and he teaches at the University of Central Missouri, where he serves as Editor of Pleiades: A Journal of New Writing. His translation of Moikom Zeqo’s I Don’t Believe in Ghosts was published by BOA Editions in 2007.