Dark Elderberry Branch: Poems of Marina Tsvetaeva

by Marina Tsvetaeva, Ilya Kaminsky, Jean Valentine (translator)

"A poet of genius."—Vladimir Nabokov
Via what Ilya Kaminsky and Jean Valentine call "readings"—not translations—of fragments of Marina Tsvetaeva's poems and prose, Tsvetaeva's lyrical genius is made accessible and poignant to a new generation of readers. By juxtaposing fragments of her poems with short pieces of prose, we begin to know her as poet, friend, enemy, woman, lover, and revolutionary.
From "Poems for Moscow (2)":
From my hands—take this city not made by hands,

my strange, my beautiful brother.
Take it, church by church—all forty times forty churches,
and flying up over them, the small pigeons;
And Spassky Gates—in their flower—
where the Orthodox take off their hats;
And the Chapel of Stars—refuge chapel—
where the floor is—polished by tears;
Take the circle of the five cathedrals,
my soul, my holy friend.
Marina Tsvetaeva was born in Moscow in 1892 and died in 1941. Her poetry stands among the greatest works of twentieth century Russian writers.
Ilya Kaminsky is the author of Dancing In Odessa (Tupelo Press, 2004) which won the Whiting Writers' Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Metcalf Award, the Dorset Prize, and the Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship awarded annually by Poetry magazine.
Jean Valentine won the Yale Younger Poets award for Dream Barker in 1965. Her eleventh book of poetry is Break the Glass, from Copper Canyon Press. Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems 1965–2003 was the winner of the 2004 National Book Award for Poetry.

Genres: Poetry, Russia, Classics, Russian Literature

53 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Марина Цветаева
Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva was born in Moscow. Her father, Ivan Tsvetaev, was a professor of art history and the founder of the Museum of Fine Arts. Her mother Mariya, née Meyn, was a talented concert pianist. The family travelled a great deal and Tsvetaeva attended schools in Switzerland, Germany, and at the Sorbonne, Paris. Tsvetaeva started to write verse in her early childhood. She made her debut as a poet at the age of 18 with the collection Evening Album, a tribute to her childhood.

In 1912 Tsvetaeva married Sergei Efron, they had two daughters and one son. Magic Lantern showed her technical mastery and was followed in 1913 by a selection of poems from her first collections. Tsvetaeva's affair with the poet and opera librettist Sofiia Parnok inspired her cycle of poems called Girlfriend. Parnok's career stopped in the late 1920s when she was no longer allowed to publish. The poems composed between 1917 and 1921 appeared in 1957 under the title The Demesne of the Swans. Inspired by her relationship with Konstantin Rodzevich, an ex-Red Army officer she wrote Poem of the Mountain and Poem of the End.

After 1917 Revolution Tsvetaeva was trapped in Moscow for five years. During the famine one of her own daughters died of starvation. Tsvetaeva's poetry reveals her growing interest in folk song and the techniques of the major symbolist and poets, such as Aleksander Blok and Anna Akhmatova. In 1922 Tsvetaeva emigrated with her family to Berlin, where she rejoined her husband, and then to Prague. This was a highly productive period in her life - she published five collections of verse and a number of narrative poems, plays, and essays.

During her years in Paris Tsvetaeva wrote two parts of the planned dramatic trilogy. The last collection published during her lifetime, After Russia, appeared in 1928. Its print, 100 numbered copies, were sold by special subscription. In Paris the family lived in poverty, the income came almost entirely from Tsvetaeva's writings. When her husband started to work for the Soviet security service, the Russian community of Paris turned against Tsvetaeva. Her limited publishing ways for poetry were blocked and she turned to prose. In 1937 appeared MOY PUSHKIN, one of Tsvetaeva's best prose works. To earn extra income, she also produced short stories, memoirs and critical articles.

In exile Tsvetaeva felt more and more isolated. Friendless and almost destitute she returned to the Soviet Union in 1938, where her son and husband already lived. Next year her husband was executed and her daughter was sent to a labor camp. Tsvetaeva was officially ostracized and unable to publish. After the USSR was invaded by German Army in 1941, Tsvetaeva was evacuated to the small provincial town of Elabuga with her son. In despair, she hanged herself ten days later on August 31, 1941.

source: http://www.poemhunter.com/marina-ivan...

Reviews

[L · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am happy living simply

I am happy living simply
like a clock, or a calendar.
Or a woman, thin,
lost - as any creature. To know

the spirit is my beloved. To arrive on earth - swift
as a ray of light, or a look.
To live as I write: spare - the way
God asks me - and friends do not.

[Shana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read it from intro to end in one sitting. Then again. Then read just my favorite moments. Then read the entire book again. Then put it next to the rocking chair to continue in this manner, possibly forever.

[Judy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the third translated book I read in March. The others were The Years and The Ravishing of Lol Stein. I came upon all three by different routes and none were on the list of my self created challenge to read one translated book a month. It appears I have opened a door in my reading life and a flood is coming through. How exciting.

Dark Elderberry Branch is a book of poetry that also includes an afterword about the poet's life by one of the translators. It was the March selection of my Tiny Book Club, suggested by the member who is a poet. We are having a Russian moment, having read Keith Gessen's A Terrible Country prior to this.

The poems in this collection got under my skin, delighted me, and gave me chills. I fell in love with Marina Tsvetaeva as have many others. The book comes with a CD of the poems being read in Russian. Though I do not speak or read Russian, hearing these poems in their original language while reading them in English was completely surreal.

Tsvetaeva (1892-1941) grew up in the last years of Tsarist Russia, lived through the Revolution of 1917 and the early years of the USSR. Those years are also covered in an amazing novel I read about a year and a half ago: The Revolution of Marina M by Janet Fitch. Early in the story the heroine, also named Marina, is about to turn 16 and plans to be a poet. It was in this book that I first read the names of Marina Tsvetaeva and her compatriot Anna Akhmatova. Marina M would to out to the coffeehouses to catch a glimpse of them and hopefully hear their poems. The two wrote poems for each other.

All part of the magic of reading.

[Vesna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brodsky considered Tsvetayeva "the sincerest" and greatest of all Russian poets in the 20th century. Her turbulent and tragic life is a never-ending source of admiration and empathy, and yet it's frustrating that her poetry continues to elude me. This short volume co-translated by Ilya Kaminsky, one of my favorite contemporary poets, has not changed it. It can hardly pass as a collection of her poems, more an homage with a slim selection of short verses, just excerpts from a few longer poems, and scattered prose fragments. It's nonetheless an inspired reading of Tsvetayeva that should be treasured by those who love her poetry.

I would single out two poems, here in both Kaminsky & Valentine's and Feinstein's versions. (Feinstein has been translating Tsvetayeva since the early 1970s; her edition with the Carcanet press expands on her previous Penguin volume).

I know the Truth (1915)

I know the truth! Give up all the other truths.
No time on earth for people to kill each other.
Look – it’s evening; look, it’s nearly night. No more
of your talk, poets, lovers, generals.

Now no wind, and the earth is sprinkled with drizzle,
and soon the blizzard of stars will go quiet.
And soon, soon, to sleep, under the earth, all of us,
us who alive on earth don’t let us sleep.

transl. Ilya Kaminsky and Jean Valentine, Dark Elderberry Branch (Alice James Books, 2012)

I know the truth – give up all other truths!
No need for people anywhere on earth to struggle.
Look – it is evening, look, it is nearly night:
what do you speak of, poets, lovers, generals?

The wind is level now, the earth is wet with dew,
the storm of stars in the sky will turn to quiet.
And soon all of us will sleep under the earth, we
who never let each other sleep above it.

transl. Elaine Feinstein, Bride of Ice (Carcanet, 2011)

A kiss on the Forehead (1917)

A kiss on the forehead—erases misery.
I kiss your forehead.

A kiss on the eyes—lifts sleeplessness.
I kiss your eyes.

A kiss on the lips—is a drink of water.
I kiss your lips.

A kiss on the forehead—erases memory.

transl. Ilya Kaminsky and Jean Valentine, Dark Elderberry Branch

A kiss on the head – wipes away misery.
I kiss your head.

A kiss on the eyes – takes away sleeplessness.
I kiss your eyes.

A kiss on the lips – quenches the deepest thirst.
I kiss your lips.

A kiss on the head – wipes away memory.
I kiss your head.

transl. Elaine Feinstein, Bride of Ice

[Hon Lady Selene · Rating 5 out of 5]

“… What is death,
Rainer? Bone-learned language: assonances, sentences.
Will we still meet?— Our words will meet,
in the ocean water, Rainer, when the earth calls the bells
on my day and there is no desk
for the elbows, no forehead for my palm.
Go to the ladder —bring poems—
I’ve got them in my hand so they won’t overflow.
Over the Rhone and over Rarogne,
over the clear sheer separation,
to Rainer, Maria, Rilke, right into his hands."

***

"But today I want Rilke to speak—through me. In the vernacular, this is known as translation. (Germans put it so much better—nachdichten—to pave over the road, over instantaneously vanishing traces.) But translation has another meaning. To translate not just into (i.e., into the Russian language), but across (a river).

I translate Rilke into Russian, as he will someday translate me to the other world.

By hand—across the river.”

[Steven Godin · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favourite Russian poet. A superb short collection.

[Sarah Horrocks · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite translation of Tsvetaeva

[Andrew Squitiro · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a book. Similar to Robin Coste Lewis, I am utterly furious at the world for hiding me from such a unique, original, difficult-yet-accessible poet. Reading her other work now, Kaminsky and Valentine's translation (and curation) is indispensable here. I hope they translate more of her work.

The brief biography in the back was well written and expository too. Didn't think I'd care for that portion, but I enjoyed it and am glad it was in there.

[Kiki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poetry is the absolute best thing in the world.

[Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely beautiful work.

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

You have to read this!!!!!! “To fall out of love—is to see, instead of him: a table”
I’m obsessed with Marina.

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sweet, slim, wisp of a book. My favorite passage: "But there cannot be 'too much' of lyric because lyric itself is 'too much.' Tsvetaeva: 'A lyric poem is a created and instantly destroyed world. How many poems are in the book-that many explosions, fires, eruptions: EMPTY spaces. The lyric poem-is a catastrophe. It barely began-and already ended.'"

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Honestly, I'm disappointed in Dark Elderberry Branch. Its subtitle is "A Reading by Ilya Kaminsky and Jean Valentine," and I'd hoped for more by two such well known and fairly well respected writers. They've excerpted bits and pieces of Tsvetaeva's poems as well as bits and pieces of her nonfiction scribbling -- from essays to letters -- but the sole commentary on these bits and pieces comes at the end of the collection in an essay/afterword by Kaminsky.

I'm left frustrated with the feeling that there's too little substance here. I really don't want to say that, because I was excited about the book when I found it, but there you go. For one, the book is so pretty: superficially/physically (I mean, we can all agree that Alice James Books creates some gorgeous books, right?) AND in terms of the translations. Consider, for instance, the differences between the Kaminsky/Valentine translation/reading of Tsvetaeva with Elaine Feinstein's translation (published by Penguin Classics) -- the differences are apparent right from the start, with titles:

Feinstein, from "Verses about Moscow":

Strange and beautiful brother -- take this

city no hands built -- out of my hands!


Church by church -- all the forty times forty, and

the small pigeons also that rise over them


Take the Spassky gate, with its flowers, where

the orthodox remove their caps, and


the chapel of stars, that refuge from evil,

where the floor is -- polished by kisses.

Kaminsky/Valentine, from "Poems for Moscow":


From my hands -- take this city not made by hands,

my strange, my beautiful brother.

Take it, church by church -- all forty times forty churches,

and flying up the roofs, the small pigeons;


and Spassky Gates -- and gates, and gates --

where the Orthodox take off their hats;


and the Chapel of Stars -- refuge chapel --

where the floor is -- polished by tears;

There's more elegance in the second translation -- the poem still feels like a poem, and less prosy than Feinstein's -- although there are elements of Feinstein's that I'm missing in the Kaminsky/Valentine version, like the flowers (where did they go, Ilya?) . . . and yet we don't have the rest of the poem for context. In fact, this is the second poem or strophe in "Poems for Moscow/Verses About Moscow" and Kaminsky/Valentine follow the second strophe with the seventh, which describes the religious of Moscow, "nuns sweeping to mass in the warmth of sleep," and ends with this couplet:

And priest -- place on my tongue

all of Moscow, city of bells!

which is so much more appropriate to the religious imagery of the mass (in particular, the act of communion) and reverent in tone than Einstein's clunky

And priest: stop my mouth up firmly

with Moscow -- which is a land of bells!

In short, Kaminsky/Valentine's versions feel much more confident and at home with Tsvetaeva. Feinstein's versions feel too rooted to the Russian-syntax-as-literal-translation and therefore less a true version of the poem itself. So, naturally, it's going to be disappointing to find that there are far fewer (drastically fewer) translations here than in Feinstein's Selected Poems.

Also, since Kaminsky/Valentine made a conscious decision to call this book "A Reading," I would have liked to see more interaction with the work -- from "flash" essays on particular poems to longer pieces like Kaminsky's afterward. I would have liked it to feel more like a reader's notebook than whatever it is in its current form -- at 32 pages of poetry, it's barely a selection, not even hardy enough to be termed a found-essay-through-poems (if such a term were a thing, which I don't think it is).

Of course, Valentine and Kaminsky certainly didn't have me in mind when they created this awkward, though beautifully titled, homage to Tsvetaeva. The problem is that I can't really figure out what they DID have in mind, and that bothers me as a reader. . . . and as a fan of the few translations we find here.

[Aseem Kaul · Rating 3 out of 5]

A superficial sampling of the work of a great poet. Tsvetaeva deserves more than 30 pages of excerpts.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very short book which includes poetry and prose. There is a CD attached which is in Russian which I don't understand but gives a sense of her rhythm in her native language.

[Sonja · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gorgeous book published by Alice James Books. Marina Tsvetaeva is my favorite poet. I learned Russian because of her, to read her in the original. I have tried to translate her but always inadequately. As Ilya Kaminsky writes in the afterword it is impossible to translate Tsvetaeva. That’s why the book is called Dark Elderberry: poems of Marina Tsvetaeva A reading by Ilya Kaminsky and Jean Valentine. A beautiful collection, and Kaminsky’s Afterword is a gem. Also there is a bonus CD with poets Polina Barskova and Valzhyna Mort reading Tsvetaeva poems.
In the end when Tsvetaeva expressed her writing goal, I think of how crazy the world is and how we try to make sense of it even in music, in poetry, in art.
“…the impossibility of my goal, for example, to use words to express a moan: nnh, nnh. To express a sound using words, using meanings. So that the only thing left in the ears would be nnh, nnh, nnh.”

[breckyn lindenman · Rating 5 out of 5]

wish this was longer! “an attempt at jealousy” is maybe the best poem ever written i’ll read every translation i can get my hands on

[Julia Bucci · Rating 5 out of 5]

from Poems for Akhmatova

I won't fall behind you. I'm the guard.
You--the prisoner. Our fate is the same.
And here in the same open emptiness
they command us the same--Go away.

So--I lean against nothing.
I see it.
Let me go, my prisoner,
to walk over towards that pine tree.
-June 1916

[Jill Neimark · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a strange and worthwhile little book that offers some lovely new translations of the great Russian poet Marina Tsvataeva, whose work I have always loved. However, I would have preferred more translations and less editorializing. The authors assume no familiarity with Tsvataeva, and rather than, say, offer a foreward with biography, they intersperse the book with their own commentary, bits of biography and so on. It's very annoying. The book, coming from a small press, is slight. Let Marina herself speak. I'd rather have had more poems, to reiterate.

But she is so vivid, she appears in these pages no matter what. There is nobody like her. Her poetry is completely original, unusual, and in a way, one can't even be influenced by it because it's so original and beautiful.

[Kirsten]

I bless our hands' daily labor

I bless our hands' daily labor, bless
sleep every night.
Bless night every night.

And the coat, your coat, my coat,
half dust, half holes.
and I bless the peace

in a stranger's house--the bread in a stranger's oven.

*******

A lovely, mysterious collection of passionate poems and fragments, and a biographical sketch written in the same spirit. Exciting to have the CD, too, and to hear the poems read in Russian.

[Michael Odom · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite book of 2012 with less than a month to go. Kaminsky & Valentine, no more the Tsvetaeva herself when translating, wisely do not attempt to be literal for sound or music. But their 'reading' of Marina Tsvetaeva brings American closer to her than a translation would and next to Tsvetaeva is a wonderful place to be.
This comes with a CD of Polina Barskova and Valezhna Mort reading the originals in Russian -- and that's just the bonus!

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was an interesting read and look further into the author’s life. She committed suicide at a fairly young age (in her 40’s) while in the midst of some of the worst of the old Soviet Union’s crackdowns on independent thinkers. Her poetry speaks to both the inner and outer life. These fragments just whet my appetite for more. They also encourage me to think about the ways in which I see life unfolding both within and without myself. I’m glad I read it.

[Caroline · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

i really wanted to like this. +.5 stars because the notes at the end, the careful attention to translation and tsvetvaeva's personality were so wonderful to read and /feel/ but ... her poetry's actual language just did not do very much for me. the context surrounding it is really interesting but the poems themselves were just OK, some gems here and there but overall didn't captivate me like i wanted it to

[K.m. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I appreciate Kaminsky and Valentine's acknowledgement of the impossibility of a translation, instead presenting their collection as their own "readings" of Tsvetaeva. Their afterword was worthwhile on its own, but I'd prefer Tsvetaeva's compiling, rather than another's; I want the raw material.

[Aviya Kushner · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a beautiful and unusual book. It is a true homage to Marina Tsvetaeva, one of the great Russian poets.

[uena · Rating 4 out of 5]

'...and soon the blizzard of stars will go quiet.'

[Kaion · Rating 4 out of 5]

THERE IS NOT ENOUGH OF THIS BOOK.

[Aletheia Solace · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the commentary and mini-biography in this even more than the selected poems (I have other favourites of Tsevetaeva)

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A kiss on the forehead - erases misery.
I kiss your forehead.

A kiss on the eyes - lifts sleeplessness.
I kiss your eyes.

A kiss on the lips - is a drink of water.
I kiss your lips.

A kiss on the forehead - erases memory.

- A kiss on the forehead, pg. 8

* * *

I won't fall behind you. I'm the guard.
You - the prisoner. Our fate is the same.
And here in the same open emptiness
they command us the same - Go away.

So - I lean against nothing.
I see it.
Let me go, my prisoner,
to walk over towards that pine tree.

- from Poems for Akhmatova, pg. 11

* * *

For complete concurrence of souls there needs to be a concurrence of breath, for what is breath, if not the rhythm of the soul? So, for humans to understand one another, they must walk or lie side by side.

- On Love, pg. 19

* * *

Thirty years together -
clearer than love.
I know your grain by heart,
you know my lines.

Wasn't it you who wrote them on my face?
You ate paper, you taught me:
There's no tomorrow. You taught me:
Today, today.

Money, bills, love letters, money, bills,
you stood in a blizzard of oak.
Kept saying: For every word you want
today, today.

God, you kept saying,
doesn't accept bits and bills.
Nnh, when they lay my body out, my fool, my
desk, let it be on you.

- from The Desk (1), pg. 26

* * *

You can't buy me. That is the whole point. To buy is to buy oneself off. You can't buy yourself off from me. You can buy me only with the whole sky in yourself. The whole sky in which, perhaps, there is no place for me.

- About Gratitude, pg. 29

[CARA ARMSTRONG]

Both Kaminsky and Valentine have previously translated Russian poets and that earlier
work provides a strong foundation for this book that reflects Tsvetaeva’s extraordinary range,
talent, and ambition. While it’s generally agreed that there were four great 20th-century Russian
poets—Tsvetaeva, Akhmatova, Mandelstam, and Pasternak, which Akhmatova herself helpfully
acknowledges in her poem, “There Are Four of Us,” the same poem that calls Tsvetaeva the
“dark elderberry branch” of the translations’ title –until now, English speaking readers haven’t
always understood Tsvetaeva’s inclusion. Now we get it, not only through the translations
themselves, but through their juxtaposition with short pieces of Tsvetaeva’s own prose, an
introduction by Stephanie Sandler, and two essays by Kaminsky.