Introduction
ORAL EPIC POETRY
Songs of the Frontier Warriors
The Source of Mujo's Strength
The Marriage of Gjeto Basho Mujo
Omer, Son of Mujo
Gjergj Elez Alia
EARLY ALBANIAN VERSE
Pjetër Budi (1566-1622)
O Hapless, Luckless Man
The Deed of Cain
Lekë Matrënga (1567-1619)
Spiritual Song
Pjetër Bogdani (ca. 1630-1689)
The Cumaean Sibyl
The Libyan Sibyl
The Delphic Sibyl
The Persian Sibyl
The Erythraean Sibyl
The Samian Sibyl
The Cumanian Sibyl
The Hellespontic Sibyl
The Phrygian Sibyl
The Tiburtine Sibyl
POETRY IN THE MUSLIM TRADITION
Nezim Frankulla (ca. 1608-1760)
I'm Your Slave, You Are My Love
Oh, Your Gaze, That Slicing Saber
Friends of Mine, They Are Fine Fellows
Nezim Has Made It Merry
In the Dust Left by Your Footsteps
Some Young Fellows Have Now Turned Up
We Have Set Off into Exile
Muçi Zade (ca. 1724)
Lord, Don't Leave Me Without Coffee
Hasan Zyko Kamberi (d. early nineteenth century)
Money
Trahaná
ITALO-ALBANIAN VERSE
Nicola Chetta (1742-1803)
Of Honorable Lineage
I Traveled the Earth
Giulio Variboba (1724-1788)á
The Life of the Virgin Mary
The Song of the Awakening
Girolamo De Rada (1814-1903)
The Earth Had Transformed the Oaks
Like Two Radiant Lips
Can a Kiss Be Sweeter?
Giuseppe Serembe (1844-1901)
Song of Longing
Friendship
RILINJA AND CLASSICAL TWENTIETH-CENTURY POETRY
Pashko Vasa (1825-1892)
O Albania, Poor Albania
Naim Bey Frashëri (1846-1900)
O Mountains of Albania
The Words of the Candle
The Flute
Andon Zako Çajupi (1866-1930)
My Village
Motherland
Servitude
Ndre Mjeda (1866-1937)
Winter
To the Albanian Eagle
Freedom
Gjergj Fishta (1871-1940)
Mehmet Ali Pasha
Bec Patani Meets His Blood Brother in Battle
The Mountain Nymphs Mourn the Death of Tringa
Asdreni (1872-1947)
To the Adriatic
Forgotten Memories
The Oracle of Dodona
The Flute
Fan Noli (1882-1965)
On Riverbanks
Dead in Exile
Run, O Soldier of Marathon
Lasgush Poradeci (1899-1987)
Pogradec
Morning
End of Autumn
Winter
Sejfullah Malëshova (1901-1971)
How I Love Albania
Rebel Poet
Mitrush Kuteli (1907-1967)
The Muddy Albanian Soil
Migjeni (1911-1938)
Poem of Poverty
Blasphemy
Song of Noble Grief
Autumn on Parade
Scandalous Song
Resignation
Fragment
The Themes
Suffering
Under the Banners of Melancholy
Esad Mekuli (1916-1993)
Is Is the Albanian's Fault?
Evening
The Death of Day
I
Hope
Arshi Pipa (1920-1997)
The First Night
Dawn
The Lamp
The Canal
CONTEMPORARY VERSE
Zef Zorba (1920-1993)
Somber This Path
A Moment, Poetry: Life
Yearning
Feast Tonight
Like Swallows
The Gravel of the Kir
Kruja
Roads in Autumn
A Nail
Martin Camaj (1925-1992)
Mountain Feast
First Elegy
A Bird Languishes
Disregard
Death—Crackling
Unexpected Guest in Berisha
Avalanche
Winter
My Mother
Failure
There Before the Tribes Arrived
In the Shade of Things
To a Modern Poet
That Mountain of Ice Divides Time
Fragment
Two Generations
Abandoned Village
Hostile Sea
Fragile Land
Kasëm Trebeshina (1926--)
The Iceberg
We Met in the Darkness
The Storks
The Pelicans
Evening
Fatos Arapi (1930--)
Leaving Vlora
You Will Come
The Brothers of Pegasus
Poems on My Mother
I Dislike Achilles
Where to Inter You?
Where Is That Old Man?
I Awaited the Nights, Standing
And She Turned Up
Those Who Still Love
How Can I Endure the Autumn?
I Arose
Dritëro Agolli (1931--)
The Cow
The Wind
The Snow
On the Appeal of Poetry
The Moon over the Meadow
Simple but Useful Things
The Secrets of the Candle
Din Mehmeti (1932--)
I Have One Request
Self-Portrait
Night of the Poets
A Legend
Swollen Roads
My Sailboat
The Past
Mihal Hanxhari (1930-1999)
Night of Stillness
A Severed Prayer
Petals
Leaves
The Linden Trees
The Earth
The Storm
The Cypress Trees]While on Its Way
Voiceless
To Sleep
Without You
Rapture
Unquenchable Fire
Lemon Blossoms
Where Is
Azem Shkreli (1938-1997)
Before the Elegy
With Migjeni
Over Europe
The Death of the Highlander
Obituary for a Bird
Monument to Mic Sokoli
A Tale About Us
The Toast
Frightened Light
Anathema
Wolf's Spoor
Departure of the Migrants
Martin's Stone
Song of Shame
Ali Podrimja (1942--)
Ghazal
The Illness of My Family
The Dead Clock
And You Dead
Death Was Quicker
The Meadow
Is It the Albanian's Fault
If
Who Will Slay the Wolf
A Child Is Dying in the Cellar
The Albanians
Or Rather
Xhevahir Spahiu (1945--)
To Be with You
In the Roots of Words
Speech
To Wake Up Late
Sketch
Translator of the River
Our History
Kosova
Torquemada
Eqrem Basha (1948--)
Nighttime Traveler of This World
Cold
Balkan Menu
The Street Sweepers of Prishtina
The Wolf
The Nightengale Sings
The Audience
Sabri Hamiti (1950--)
The Telegram
The Telephone
Prizren
Ali Podrimja
George Castrioti
Visar Zhiti (1952--)
At the Bars of My Cell
Little Prison, Big Prison
Death Impresses No One Here
The Prison Shower Room
Bloody Lips
In Our Cells
The Tyrant's Onetime Office, Near Which I Work
My Father's Poem
Far from Our Countries
Mario Bellizzi (1957--)
Aroma
Curfew
Serbs, Coca-Cola, and Kosovars
Trance
Abdullah Konushevci (1958--)
Dream . . . Then Vlora
Expressionist Verse
How Prishtina Once Woke in the Morning
The Honorable Whore
Heavy Burden, Your Fragile Body
Besnik Mustafaj (1958--)
The Heroes and I
Donika
Night Walk in the Forest
Prophetic Poem
I've Set Off to Find You
Whence Your Fear of the Wolf
Basri Çapriqi (1960--)
My Room in London
My Room in Ulqin
Girl from the East, Prostitute in Rome
Mimoza Ahmeti (1963--)
Mental Asylum with Open Doors
Delirium
Eastern Europe
Death
I'm Just Mad About Campari
Letter to Mommy
Flutura Açka (1966--)
Landscape
On Our "Ancestral Lands"
Prayer for Anna Akhmatova
Monotony
Ballad on a Campaign to Inhibit Feelings
Evil Doings
Arian Leka (1966--)
The Spine of the Sea
Alone
Easter on the Island of Hvar
Background Chant
Agron Tufa (1967--)
Old Stanza for a New Love
Albania
The Regulations at the Catholic School for Girls
The Proof of the Land
Luljeta Lleshanaku (1968--)
With You
Annual Snowfall
Mutural Understanding
Camomile Breath
Always a Premonition
The Old People's Home
Quite by Accident
Electrolysis
For as Long As
The Truth
Lindita Arapi (1972--)
Walls
Energies of Color
Bloodstain
Girls Are Made of Water
Parid Teferiçi (1972--)
In Obot, While Waiting
In Perspective
Woman Holding a Balance, by Vermeer
The Poet
First Prayer
In a Country as Small as This One
Romeo Çollaku (1973--)
The Piggy Bank of Time
Lost in Thought
Song of the Horned Lark
Old Faded Photographs
Another Folk Painting
On the Roof and Fences
Elegy
Ervin Hatibi (1974--)
They'll Invent a Substance or a Machine
Dedicated
Especially in August
Once Again on the Price of Bananas
Source Notes
