I once met a man
who thought he was a cake
I didn’t identify what type – wedding or birthday
his faith was so strong
that I succumbed
and began to want him
on my plate
but life moved in my way
I queued for a month
letting children and invalids
of unknown wars
ahead of me in the line
when it was my turn
there was only one piece left
and the man-cake announced
to anyone who was listening
I am one
and you are many
I will not be given to anyone
watch me and admire my beauty
the unattainable distance
I recovered myself
realised I’m not a cake lover anyway
Notes on this poem
Volha Hapeyeva was born in Minsk in 1982 and is a writer, translator and linguist. A member of the Belarusian PEN Centre and the Belarusian Writers’ Union, Volha also translates poetry – predominantly from English, German and Chinese – and has translated poets such as Kobayashi Issa and Sylvia Plath. She collaborates with electronic musicians and visual artists to create audio-visual performances and has had international residency scholarships in Austria, Germany and Latvia. She is currently an Associate Professor at Minsk State Linguistic University (Belarus). She holds a PhD in linguistics; her research is in the fields of comparative linguistics, philosophy of language, sociology of the body, and gender issues in culture and literature.
I met Volha at the 2017 Struga Poetry Festival in Macedonia and we have been slowly working together to translate her poetry into English ever since – this process involves Volha producing a ‘literal’ English translation of her work and then a back and forth email exchange.
Her research around the body and gender is often prevalent in her work, and as can be seen in this poem, contains both darkness and humour. The poem is from her new collection Black Poppies due to be published in March 2019 in Belarus. The poems in Black Poppies explore trauma and transformation, using language as a way of both containing trauma and explaining it, in order to continue living.
