Synkroniciti is delighted to welcome writer, poet and visual artist Gabriela Manolova from Sofia, Bulgaria, with “sounds like home,” a poem about finding love and belonging. It describes an idealized moment of togetherness on the beach at sunset with a freshly sliced apple and a desire for permanence: “you’ll be here all summer, where you’d like to be/ when the time comes to face winter.” Like Faust, who desires the perfect moment, but cannot keep it without spoiling it, Gabriela hints at the imperfection and transience of life and joy, “someone reminds you/ not to scratch the mosquito bites on your legs.” The fluency and eloquence of her poem is transcendent, painting a picture of paradise and reminding us that not even paradise is without discomfort, symbolized by flies and mosquitos, or impervious to change, symbolized by the soothing rhythm of the tide heralding the passage of time. Gabriela creates a delicate, yet powerful sense of wistfulness within this dream, created by the shifting rhythms, patches of structured meter giving way to more conversational meter.
Read “sounds like home” in Synkroniciti’s “Belonging” issue, available here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/. You don’t want to miss this expressive emerging voice.
Usually a prose girl, Gabriela Manolova turns to poetry whenever something too fleeting or painful to be fleshed out in novel-length demands to be expressed.
“I approach prose as problem-solving, an intentional, analytical exploration. Writing poetry is altogether different. Like running into a sharp edge in the dark —a line hits you, and suddenly, you’ve found something you didn’t even realize you were looking for. My work’s kept circling back to the same themes, pointing me to that which remains unresolved. Love, grief, identity—all the unavoidable things, really.
“sounds like home” is a snapshot of an ideal, a final destination—being at peace, wanting for nothing. A feeling this poet would very much like to foster along the journey too.