New First Unexpected

NOW AVAILABLE: POEMS FROM CHILDREN'S ISLAND

 
From Lightful Press: Poems from Children's Island by Sasha Chernyi (Translated from Russian by Kevin Kinsella and  Illustrated by Jessica Seamans).

You can order it through Small Press Distribution.

Praise for Poems from Children’s Island

Kevin Kinsella has done an enormous service by translating to English the charming children’s poems by seminal Russian poet Sasha Chernyi. What a pleasure to become acquainted with his work for children, both in the original and in this lovely translation. This book will have a permanent place on my shelf. 

-- Irina Reyn, author of What Happened to Anna K. 

If you, like me, sometimes wonder why chocolates don’t grow on beds and frogs don’t use pillows, if you think that girls are cheese and boys potatoes (or is it the other round a way?); if you, even just once in a scarlet moon, imagine that little mouses are far braver than humungous lions, then these poems may be for you. Not recommended for adults! as these rimes are far too clever, and besides adults don’t like poetry.

–– Charles Bernstein, author of All the Whiskey in Heaven.

 It is a pleasure to welcome the first English-language edition of Sasha Chernyi, one of the earliest Russian-Jewish humor writers from Odessa, the town that also produced Isaac Babel. Chernyi’s satirical poems, with their mordant wit, observant eye, and ease of verbal caricature, made him the darling of the liberal intelligentsia of the early 1900s. His children’s poetry—which he especially cultivated as a political refugee after the Revolution—shows great empathy with how children see things, and especially how they see animals. Now ably translated by Kevin Kinsella, Sasha Chernyi’s “Children’s Island” (1921, 1928) ushers us into the mysterious world of children’s culture of a bygone era.

  ––Eugene Ostashevsky, editor of OBERIU: An Anthology of Russian Absurdism.

 These masterful, inspired translations do eminent justice to the caustic wit, paradoxical wordplay, idiosyncratic worldview, uniquely keen sensibility, and quirky prosodic rhythms of one of Russia's most interesting and gifted (and alas, undeservedly little-known heretofore in this country) poets circa the first half of last century. Before Daniil Kharms and Nikolai Zabolotsky, there was Sasha Chernyi. Without him, the history of Russian poetry would be woefully incomplete. This fine book's publication is an occasion to celebrate.

 

--Mikhail Iossel, editor of Rasskazy: New Fiction from a New Russia, and founder and director of the Summer Literary Seminars in St. Petersburg, Kenya, and Vilnius.

 

 

 

 

 

EYES OF JORDAN

One of my favorite parts of translating poetry is figuring out solutions for idiomatic expressions. My Russian skills are sorely lacking in the idiomatic arena, so I usually take the expression at the face of the words that comprise it and become hopelessly confused. Recently, I was faced with the two lines:

Даль стоит жемчужная с серебром,
иордань глазам.

Initially, I translated it thusly:

The distance costs pearls within silver,
The Eyes of Jordan.

I had no idea what "Eyes of Jordan" referred to, other than the biblical connotation and reference to the River Jordan. I did some Googling and only found references to a Pittsburgh-based marketing agency and a travel agency working out of Beirut, neither of which made sense for the poem at hand.

Luckily, I had access to the poet who wrote those lines and was able to send her my draft translation of her poem. I simply left it "Eyes of Jordan" in my translation--a cop out--and waited to see what her response was. She immediately wondered if an American audience would understand the expression, as it related to a Russian Orthodox practice of cutting holes in the ice of a river for baptism. The holes in the icy surface of the river were the "eyes" of Jordan, referring to ancient baptisms in that holy river where new believers were submerged or dunked beneath the surface three times by a priest. A great image which made sense in the context of the poem in general, and to the expression in the preceding line--"pearls within silver"--specifically..that is, if you were Eastern Orthodox. Unfortunately, the poet was right, "Eyes of Jordan," as is wouldn't make sense to an American ear.

Eventually, I came up with "Three dunks in the icy river" in place of the more poetic "Eyes of Jordan." The poet loved it. So that's what we settled on.

I'd share the whole poem here but it's out for publication right now and I'd be expected to grant exclusive first-time rights to the publisher.

THE BUSINESS

I've been translating poems by Ekaterina Boyarshikh (more about her below), a terrific Russian poet, who is actually still alive--for a change--and who is actually younger than I am. It's a totally different experience than translating those who are so long dead that their works are out there in the Public Domain--not to mention being unable to take umbrage with my shoddy language skills. It's sort of terrifying. But so far Katya hasn't complained...

Here's my first go:

Business

Her business: to sing, to swoon, to be afraid.
His business: to fight, to fly, to laugh.
And what about me?
My business: to lie about peace and freedom.
My business: Not to tell who I am.
My business is to stand on the main road: “Buy cherries! Buy cherries!”
His business: When she is sick, to cook her porridge.
My business: to reach the sea across the land.
Your business: to swim at the bottom of a well
Like a star winged with sad fins.
Our business: to think “none of our business.”
Your business: to hold us to no standard.
Your business: to bring us all to life.
My business: to be your threshold
through heart defect, misunderstanding.
Your business: lightning on roads 
 to drive me into a forest of doors and open windows.
Your business: to believe in my breath
at least a little more.
With nowhere to hide from the world
we went to the torture chamber.
We will not move out of prisons.
We will not move. We will disappear.

Ekaterina Boyarskikh is a poet, prose-writer, and scholar. She was born in 1975 in Irkutsk. Currently, she is a research fellow at the Russian Language and Literature Department of Irkutsk State University. She is the author of one book of poetry, Dagaz (OGI Press, 2005). Her work has appeared in journals, collections, and anthologies, and she has contributed to numerous online literary publications. She was awarded the Debut Prize for Poetry in 2000.