THREE POEMS FROM ARMENIDA QYQJA

Armendia Qyqja. Courtesy of the author

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A few years ago, I published an anthology of contemporary Albanian poetry called The New Condemned with my company World Inkers Printing and Publishing. Its purpose was to document the effects of the repressive communist regime on Albanian culture and to highlight its cultural uniqueness in literature. This effort connected me with Albanian poets internationally. I learned there is a large diaspora due to political and economic strains. One poet, Ermira Mitre, appreciated my dedication to international literature. She met Albanian-Canadian poet Armenida Qyqja who was seeking a larger audience for her work. Armenida was referred to me by Ermira, and she shared her ongoing translations for a larger literary production.

That effort culminated into Golden Armor last year. The book had the artwork of Bruna Aliaj and was carefully edited with assistance from Candice Louisa Daquin. The poetry explores human rights concerns and issues in the Balkans, among many contemporary cultural and social trends. In February, the book was celebrated by Harvard’s Comparative Literature Department with the event Golden Armor: The Soul’s Shield which presented speeches from Armenida’s teacher from her youth, me, as the publisher, a Boston poet, Jason Youngclaus, and an answer and question session curated by Fulbright scholar Dr. Inga Zhghenti. The book recently placed as a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book Prize’s da Vinci Eye, a distinction given for books with superior cover art that reflects the book’s content.

Dustin Pickering

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Kosovo

I know that you shed tears inside your heart,
even when you smile,
the eyes that try to hide them in their corners, tell me,
the wet voice that trembles in the air…
how can you rejoice the day
when at night you count the years
without your child…
from the common grave a hand reaches out
to wipe out your tears, Kosovo…
your returned soul, century after century
doesn’t know why it is reborn,
drenched in blood again and again to die…
we’ve come back to a more miserable time,
will it be the last?
you kiss the hand and gently cover it with dirt again,
through tears, you try to smile at the day,
but the stars once more have abandoned your sky…

*This poem is dedicated to victims of the Kosovo’ genocide in 1999.

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Simply, woman

You came just in time, when you were most needed,
behind the curtains, tired were the prayers,
let the strong woman have a rest now,
in your arms, to bed carry me tonight!

to strong people—the world belongs, always,
but I’m laying my weapons down tonight,
giving you the chance to be strong for me,
while I take a nap, on your cozy chest…

in old tales let the amazons battle,
invincible and glorious as ever,
I’ve fought so much—I don’t miss the swords,
the flashings of the soul on their sharp edges…

simply a woman, I’d like to be now,
come darling, do spoil me, finally!

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Mercenaries of chaos

Spiritual and mental anorexia,
that has no cure, no stimulus,
the most evil chronic condition
is going to wipe out the human race
at a much higher rate
—than all viruses created in labs…

and you, mercenaries of chaos,
what will you say one day?
to the empty skulls of your children
that won’t know anything else
other than shaking involuntarily, uncontrollably,
Tequila, tequila va, va.

‘Tequila va, va’ is was hit song in Albania.

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Armenida Qyqja was born in Tirana, Albania in 1977. She started her very first experiments with writing when she was 14 years old. She began to write more poetry and short stories. Immigrating to Canada in 1995 at age 17 she pushed aside her aspirations to be a writer. The primary goal was survival and integrating into a completely new environment.

It took her some time to find the writer in herself again. Finally, she managed to published her first poetry book, Beyond the rails of rain in 2018 in Tirana, Albania. She published A bunch of poems instead of flowers in 2022, and then she published Golden Armor with Transcendent Zero Press in 2025 which was well received in Canada and the USA.