Crookedness

The world according to Tsvetanka Elenkova is both lucid and hieratic. In it, a lover's eye is 'a disc on a chain /with the god of the sun /the window casts on the wall'; but love itself is an 'Altar' on which the lovers are 'lying crosswise'. The poet's own narrative eye keeps shifting viewpoint - and perspective - not for the sake of it but to create depth and meaning: 'The other side of perspective /is dimension'. It's all expressed with economy and the utmost clarity: yet that clarity is...