My first Publication 1926874721_Alumni_Magazine_June_2010 | Page 20

Issue 3, June 2010
Dimiter Kenarov ’99:
Apocryphal Animals
Dimiter Kenarov is an ACS alumnus from the Class of 1999. After graduating the College Dimiter got
his BA in American and Russian Literature from Middlebury College and is working today on his PhD
in English Literature from University of California, Berkeley. He is a poet and a freelance journalist
with articles published in The Nation, Boston Review, and VQR (The Virginia Quarterly Review).
On 16 April we had the pleasure of attending the prèmière of his second book of poetry Апокрифни
животни (Publishing House Janet 45)¹ in the National Museum of Natural History and couldn’t help
asking him a few questions for the pages of the ACS Alumni Magazine.
Why poetry on animals of all
subjects?
Well, over the years I had written a
couple of poems about animals and
thought at some point that this is worth
turning into a greater project. For me
poetry has always been a way of stepping
outside myself, putting on a mask if you
will, rather than submerging into the
depths of one’s soul, which is what it
is for many other authors. This is, of
course, influenced by Shklovsky and
his concept of ostranenie (estrangement)
in literature, in other words casting new
light on objects in order to perceive them
in a different way. And so, in this book
my perspective is shifted from the usual
anthropocentric one, you know with
humans sitting in their directors’ chairs
and ruling over nature and all things
living, to one where humans are just a
part of it all and animals get to speak up.
It has now been 11 years since you
graduated ACS. What would you say
the College means to you? Do you
keep in touch with ACS classmates?
My years at ACS were the happiest in my
life so far. I made so many friends and
we had so much fun back then. Even if
I only meet a few of them and not that
often, each time we do, we manage to
get together for some quite fun parties
here in Sofia. I also keep in touch with a
couple of ACS friends in the US. As to
what my experience here has given me,
I should mention how quickly I noticed
in Middlebury how much easier it was
for us, ACSers – there was four of us
when I got there – compared with the
other international students, to get used
to the US college rules and discipline, at
the same time managing with the English
language and the overall study load. This
we owed to ACS, even if it didn’t always
feel so great when we were still students
here and plotting our rebellions.
I can’t help but ask how snowboarder
Mitko, which happens to be the
image we had of you from our
common years here at ACS, turned
out a poet slash freelance journalist?
(laughing) Indeed, back in ACS times,
I was a national junior champion in
snowboarding two years in a row. And
to be honest, I did choose my college
first according to how close it was to a
mountain where one could snowboard
and then according to their financial aid
policy and courses offered (laughing). You
know, I got a similar reaction to yours by
the admissions officer at Middlebury on
the department award ceremony at the
end of my first school year. The thing
is, I got the award of three departments
– for Russian, English, and American
literature – for my paper on Brodsky
and W. H. Auden, and this lady, who had
personally gone through my application,
was bewildered at the country champion
in snowboarding getting three literature
department awards all of a sudden.
But I am glad I still go snowboarding
sometimes and I absolutely believe that
one can always find time for the things
one truly enjoys.
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How about poetry and journalism –
how do those two go together?
If poetry implies sitting down away from
the world and what’s happening in it and
turning to one’s imagination instead, and
journalism means traveling around the
world and observing, well, then I enjoy
both of those. I guess my journalistic
pieces are best characterized as new
journalism, that is I use literary techniques
typical of novels in the journalistic
pieces I write and those are 40-50 pages
long rather than just the usual 300 words.
But this type of journalism hardly exist
in Bulgaria and that’s one of the reasons
why, apart from the pay and the bigger
audience, of course, I write my articles
mostly in English.²
Your status in the social networks
often features locations like Kosovo,
Iraq, Kuwait, etc. What’s the next
exotic destination on your list?
Unfortunately nobody seems to want to
read about Hawaii, so it will have to be
some place equally dynamic to the ones
you listed, most probably one of the
former republics of the Soviet Union in
connection to 20 years since the union
dissolved back in 1991.
¹ All proceeds from the book will be
used for improving the situation of the
animals at the Sofia Zoo.
² Dimiter’s article on the life of Roma
population in Bulgaria was published in
the anthology The Best American Travel
Writing 2009.
The interview was taken by Petia Ivanova '97, Editor