Strange Is This Nowhere, Dad
— Bryan Sykes, The Seven Daughters of Eve
At a Glance
- • A poem addressed to the father, in which the speaker’s body is a poplar among apple trees and a marsh reed among wildflowers — given by him, carried away by the mother, always jutting out.
- • Author: Olivera Andonoska
- • Form: Free verse, short lines with repeated “like a stork, like a stork, Dad…”
- • Collection: We Are Eve
- • Theme: The father’s body and the mother’s distance
- • Epigraph: Bryan Sykes, The Seven Daughters of Eve
My body, a poplar, flat as a plain
among fertile, bountiful apple trees -
I bend my branches,
I bow my crown
to be closer to them,
and still I jut out like a stork, a stork, Dad…
At night, when everything is quiet and no one sees,
I stretch my body,
I pull and pull to lengthen it
from the hollows of the earth,
yet I am far from the stars
strange is this nowhere,
Dad,
you gave me this body,
and then my mother took me far from you,
away from your kin, your likeness -
here I stick out like a stork, like a stork, Dad…
My body, a marsh reed
among joyful wildflowers,
a hollow marsh reed -
I bend downward,
I twist,
I coil,
and all of me aches, Dad
I am a marsh reed,
my fibers are no longer resilient,
they surrender to the wind.
it is the season of floods, Dad,
you know what that means, don't you…
About Olivera Andonoska
Olivera Andonoska (b. 1980, Prilep, North Macedonia) is a philologist and proofreader specializing in the Macedonian language. She is the author of the poetry collection We Are Eva, which received the Antevo Pero Award in 2025, and the short story collection How I Killed Vera and How She Was Reborn. She has also published children’s books. Her poetry and prose have appeared in literary magazines, and she has participated in literary festivals. In addition to her own writing, Andonoska works as an editor on a range of publications.
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