Iowa Writes

SABIT MADALIEV, TRANSLATED BY RUSSELL VALENTINO
Three Poems


Fate turned with the emptiness of a screen
where white is white and all pristine.
I lost myself in sleepless nights without you,
like an oar carried far out to the sea.

*

At my soul's border, where light splinters,
on the balcony where you still sit, bundling in a blanket,
I am absent, though your things keep my gaze,
as trees keep the foreign breath of planets.

*

You were only a quiet dream in my quiet world,
appearing, disappearing, silent in the crowd.
Why then, again, in the ocean of oblivion,
does my longing for you rise up like a whale from the flood?

About Iowa Writes

Since 2006, Iowa Writes has featured the work of Iowa-identified writers (whether they have Iowa roots or live here now) and work published by Iowa journals and publishers on The Daily Palette. Iowa Writes features poetry, fiction, or nonfiction twice a week on the Palette.

In November of 2008, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) designated Iowa City, Iowa, the world's third City of Literature, making the community part of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network.

Iowa City has joined Edinburgh, Scotland and Melbourne, Australia as UNESCO Cities of Literature.

Find out more about submitting by contacting iowa-writes@uiowa.edu


SABIT MADALIEV, TRANSLATED BY RUSSELL VALENTINO

Sabit Madaliev lives in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, and participated in the 2004 International Writing Program. The Silence of the Sufi will be published in Russell Valentino's English translation by Autumn Hill Books in Fall 2006. Russell Valentino's essays and translations have been published by The Iowa Review, eXchanges, Two Lines, and 91st Meridian. He teaches at the University of Iowa. "Three Poems" was originally published in the Winter 2006 issue of eXchanges, the University of Iowa's literary e-journal devoted to translations both into and out of the English language.

eXchanges Journal of Literary Translation

This page was first displayed
on July 17, 2006

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