Paul Klee's Boat (In the Grip of Strange Thoughts)

by Anzhelina Polonskaya, Andrew Wachtel (Translator)

Unlike many of her contemporaries, Anzhelina Polonskaya did not receive a classic Russian literary education, so her work is considerably more idiosyncratic and less anchored in tradition. This book, her first collection in English translation since 2005, includes her cycle "Kursk," an oratorio requiem with music by David Chisolm that will be performed across Australia and the United States. Anzhelina Polonskaya was born in Malakhovka, a small town near Moscow, Russia. She began to write poems seriously at the age of eighteen. Between 1995 and 1997 she lived in Latin America, working as a professional ice dancer. Her first book of verse Svetoch Moi Nebesny ( My Heavenly Torch ) appeared in 1993. Eventually deciding to leave ice skating, and to devote herself full-time to literature, Polonskaya consistently has been one of the freshest voices writing on both the Russian and world stage. Andrew Wachtel is the president of the American University of Central Asia in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Previously he was dean of The Graduate School and director of the Roberta Buffett Center for International and Comparative Studies at Northwestern University. A fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and the author of numerous publications, he is also a translator from Russian, Bosnian/Croation/Serbian, and Slovene. He translated Anzhelina Polonskaya's previous collection, A Voice (Northwestern University Press, 1995).

Genres: Poetry

160 pages, Paperback

First published December 4, 2012

Reviews

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good poems, well translated by Andrew Wachtel, by a contemporary Russian poet. Melancholy, never bleak, but direct and honest. Highlight: "Kursk: An Oratorio Requiem," which refers obliquely to Putin's deliberate sinking of the submarine Kursk with all of the living sailors on board.

[Will · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read to review for Three Percent, a good collection of poetry, worth the whole read for the closing KURSK: AN ORATORIO REQUIEM.

Full review coming soon.

[Richard]

A bilingual Russian-English volume of poetry.

I was caught by the title and the reproduction on the cover and, then, in the table of contents, "Kursk: An Oratorio Requiem" (pp 122-49). From "10. Angel" (pp 146-47), "From the voices and howls/ of the impossible/ we'll compose a symphony./ Play it standing/ on the bleached sand/ of despair." Surely, this response fits the catastrophe of the submarine's sinking and the refusal of deep-water aid because of "military secrets."

Some images: from "Leaves" (19), "Like children, the dry leaves/ on the mournful sidewalks/ tangle around our legs." from "Gray and Blue" (p 65), "There's much shame in this world, but perhaps the least known/ is to age before your mother's eyes."

"Quarter to Five" (pp 62-63)

". . . there's neither sadness nor joy,
just the day, multiplying your labor.
Your love is dark, like Uncle Sam's storeroom
where even the mice shake
with fear.
In London no one expects you,
here, by contrast, they've hidden
around every corner, readying something.
The clock shows quarter to five.
Soon it will begin: pigs led
to the slaughterhouse, flowers and stalks
to the flower market where many
petals are crushed beneath feet.
And the human soul is forced
to look down at all this, from the height
of its purported indifference.
Quarter to five.
You turn toward the wall,
close your eyes and die."

[Claudia Putnam · Rating 5 out of 5]

I went looking for this book after reading a couple of the poems in The American Poetry Review. Inspired by many works of art, but not ABOUT them, the book uses paintings as a departure. Whatever mood the painting evoked in Polanskaya was the place she wrote from. Many of the images are stunning. The Kursk cycle at the end of the book, which she later developed into a libretto for an opera that's been performed in Sidney, is intriguing. It's not about the submarine but the relationship of sailors to sea, and the sense of loss following the sinking and slow death of the men aboard the Kursk.

I am often annoyed by translations of Russian poetry, but this one is quite close, perhaps because the author herself knows enough English to collaborate with the translator.

Some memorable lines"

I know that all poplars are equally female
when laid on their backs.


How much water there was--I can still feel the sea
in my pockets.


You lost me like a coin...
...
All I can do now
is try not to shine too much, otherwise it
will be swapped for even smaller change.

[Paul Kerschen]

Unusually translatable Russian verse: all that elegy, all that snow.