And With The Tape It Measures

I rounded up some of my own poetry earlier in the week.

Today we have a poem by Flora Brovina, an Albanian poet, pediatrician, politician, and activist.

Some info about Ms. Brovina from Wikipedia:

As the political situation in Kosovo deteriorated in the 1990s, and fighting broke out, Brovina ran a health clinic in Pristina in which she distributed health care information on matters as diverse as snake bites, dressing wounds and delivering babies. She also used the centre to shelter a number of orphaned children, many of whom had lost their parents during the fighting and expulsions. She and her fellow workers took care of as many as 25 children at a time.

On 20 April 1999 during the Kosovo War, Brovina was abducted by eight masked Serb paramilitaries from the home she was staying in and was driven off by car to an initially unknown destination. She was thus in captivity in Serbia when NATO forces took the capital and Serb troops withdrew from the country. The first news of her abduction broke on 24 April 1999 when her son managed to contact the international writers’ association, PEN, with an urgent appeal that the news of her abduction be made known as widely as possible. She was transferred to a Serb prison in Požarevac and, in her first month of detention, was subjected to over 200 hours of interrogation in 18 separate sessions lasting typically from 7 A.M. to 5 P.M. On 9 December 1999, in a show trial, she was accused of 'terrorist activities' under Article 136 of the Yugoslav Penal Code. She spent a year and a half in Serb prisons before being released as a result of international pressure.

In 2001, she ran for president of Kosovo. Brovina became a member of the Assembly of Kosovo (Parliament) that year and she has held that position ever since.

A poem from Dr. Robert Elsie's Albanian Literature in Translation site:

Dimension
by Flora Brovina

With the tape it measures,
And with the tape it measures
My waist and right arm,
With the tape it measures,
Crawling up my spine,
Rib for rib
As I stand erect,
And with the tape it measures
My long hair and bare shoulders,
Taking a furtive glance of toes
On naked feet,
With the tape it measures
Droplets slithering down my body,
Down my brow and down my cheeks,
I stay put
I don’t go out, I don’t go in,
I don’t go out, I don’t go in,
And with the tape it measures
My bare physique,
My stubby limbs,
No, please, not the head,
And with the tape it measures,
Overlooking nothing,
Missing not a hair,
It puts a noose around my neck
To fashion me a collar
And makes me clothes to its dimensions,
Soaking wet I shiver,
With the tape it measures,
And with the tape it measures,
Nothing can I conceal from it
Neither brow, nor curves, nor belly,
Neither fever, nor blood, nor sweat,
It sees it all,
My whole physique, oh,
But not the tears
Below the lashes, no,
For these there is no tape,
And so the clothes will not be fashioned
To its own dimensions.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ms. Brovina's three books of poetry seem hard to come by, but there is a poem of hers in New European Poets, edited by Wayne Miller and Kevin Prufer.

Renee at No Water River is our Poetry Friday host today.