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My Hollywood and Other Poems
"The wit and daring of his rhymes and phrasing remind me of that old master, Donald Justice, who dazzled us with the elegance of his forms. Dralyuk carries this high style into the 21st century, and I, for one, am thrilled to be in the presence of his marvelous verbal art. Pay attention, a new maestro is in our midst." — Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic and Dancing in Odessa
"These [poems] are the souvenirs of an almost-vanished glamour, an ethnic, gritty, free-wheeling city, little fantasias encased in rhyme and meter."—Jesse Nathan, McSweeney's
My Hollywood and Other Poems is a collection of lyric meditations on the experience of émigrés in Los Angeles. In forms ranging from ballades to villanelles to Onegin sonnets, the poems pursue the sublime in a tarnished landscape, seek continuity and mourn its loss in a town where change is the only constant. My Hollywood draws on the poet’s own life as a Jewish immigrant from the Soviet Union, honors the vanishing traces of the city’s past, and, in crisp and poignant translations, summons the voices of five Russian poets who spent their final years in LA, including the composer Vernon Duke.
“Dralyuk embraces rhyme with a rare and admirable enthusiasm for sound and syllable, for musical variety and plays on words . . . [An] air of upbeat sorrow permeates My Hollywood . It’s an émigré mood, defined by the conviction that things could always be worse.”— New York Review of Books
"Sophisticated, musical, and often humorous."— Booklist
"Byronic rhymes are poetry’s answer to special effects, and Dralyuk’s skill at slipping them in—so that the art seems artless—is worthy of Industrial Light & Magic . . . What’s true of my favorite films is true of this the lines are first-rate, but it’s the images that linger.”— Austin Allen, The Hopkins Review
" My Hollywood is a first-rate collection of precise, delightfully graceful poems, the poet as Fred Astaire tap-dancing up and down the lines."— Russian Life
"These [poems] are the souvenirs of an almost-vanished glamour, an ethnic, gritty, free-wheeling city, little fantasias encased in rhyme and meter."—Jesse Nathan, McSweeney's
My Hollywood and Other Poems is a collection of lyric meditations on the experience of émigrés in Los Angeles. In forms ranging from ballades to villanelles to Onegin sonnets, the poems pursue the sublime in a tarnished landscape, seek continuity and mourn its loss in a town where change is the only constant. My Hollywood draws on the poet’s own life as a Jewish immigrant from the Soviet Union, honors the vanishing traces of the city’s past, and, in crisp and poignant translations, summons the voices of five Russian poets who spent their final years in LA, including the composer Vernon Duke.
“Dralyuk embraces rhyme with a rare and admirable enthusiasm for sound and syllable, for musical variety and plays on words . . . [An] air of upbeat sorrow permeates My Hollywood . It’s an émigré mood, defined by the conviction that things could always be worse.”— New York Review of Books
"Sophisticated, musical, and often humorous."— Booklist
"Byronic rhymes are poetry’s answer to special effects, and Dralyuk’s skill at slipping them in—so that the art seems artless—is worthy of Industrial Light & Magic . . . What’s true of my favorite films is true of this the lines are first-rate, but it’s the images that linger.”— Austin Allen, The Hopkins Review
" My Hollywood is a first-rate collection of precise, delightfully graceful poems, the poet as Fred Astaire tap-dancing up and down the lines."— Russian Life
- GenresPoetry
69 pages, Paperback
Published April 5, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
March 23, 2024
Old Hollywood Émigré Nostalgia
Review of the Paul Dry Books paperback edition (April 5, 2022).
Much of the delight in these contemporary poems comes from the fact that they rhyme. Call me old fashioned but that is still what makes poetry sing for me, even if there are some rare modern day exceptions. That the poetry is also nostalgia oriented about old time Hollywood is a bonus. There is a slant towards the time of early 20th Century Russian émigrés, many of whose families likely escaped pogroms or other Tsarist or Communist terror back in their home country. An entire section is devoted to translations from the Russian language poetry of some of those.
Soundtrack
With two of the poems in the section Russian Hollywood: Translations being by Vernon Duke (original name Vladimir Dukelsky) I couldn't resist listening to a few of that poet/composer's classic songs, of which you can listen to 4 of them here, including "Autumn in New York", "April in Paris", "I Can't Get Started" and "Taking a Chance on Love."
Other Reviews
Review at Poetry Foundation by Heather Green, April 5, 2022
Review at World Literature Today by Dustin Condren, July, 2022.
Review at LA Review of Books by Art Beck, July 2, 2022.
Bonus Track
There are 2 translated Vernon Duke poems in this book, but not this one. Listen to Major Jackson recite “Fish Pier, Santa Monica” by Vernon Duke translated by Boris Dralyuk on the Slow Down Show Podcast from March 6, 2024.
Trivia and Links
There are links to further reviews, endorsements and to individual poems published in journals at the author's Wordpress website which you can find here.
Review of the Paul Dry Books paperback edition (April 5, 2022).
And now I watch another era fade,
Cyrillic letters scraped from shuttered storefronts,
tar-crusted bread, stale fish, stiff marmalade
sit sulking on the shelves, unchosen orphans
in what were once the bustling little shops
of Russian Hollywood. Hardly a soul now stops
to thumb the plums... - excerpt from "The Garden of Allah", the hotel originally was the home of Alla Nazimova, late stage and screen star.
Much of the delight in these contemporary poems comes from the fact that they rhyme. Call me old fashioned but that is still what makes poetry sing for me, even if there are some rare modern day exceptions. That the poetry is also nostalgia oriented about old time Hollywood is a bonus. There is a slant towards the time of early 20th Century Russian émigrés, many of whose families likely escaped pogroms or other Tsarist or Communist terror back in their home country. An entire section is devoted to translations from the Russian language poetry of some of those.
Soundtrack
With two of the poems in the section Russian Hollywood: Translations being by Vernon Duke (original name Vladimir Dukelsky) I couldn't resist listening to a few of that poet/composer's classic songs, of which you can listen to 4 of them here, including "Autumn in New York", "April in Paris", "I Can't Get Started" and "Taking a Chance on Love."
Other Reviews
Review at Poetry Foundation by Heather Green, April 5, 2022
Review at World Literature Today by Dustin Condren, July, 2022.
Review at LA Review of Books by Art Beck, July 2, 2022.
Bonus Track
There are 2 translated Vernon Duke poems in this book, but not this one. Listen to Major Jackson recite “Fish Pier, Santa Monica” by Vernon Duke translated by Boris Dralyuk on the Slow Down Show Podcast from March 6, 2024.
Trivia and Links
There are links to further reviews, endorsements and to individual poems published in journals at the author's Wordpress website which you can find here.
February 25, 2024
Anyone with an interest in early Hollywood (the town as well as the idea) and a passion for fine verse will love this superb book of poems. Boris Dralyuk is a worthy interpreter of the Eastern European immigrant experience in the land of desert winds and palm trees.
February 26, 2022
I really loved this collection of poetry set around Hollywood, namely old Hollywood and the emigres that settled there. Dralyuk also includes translations of poems from other emigre writers. A perfect book to find a semblance of solace during the crisis in Ukraine now.
March 3, 2022
A major new voice in American poetry. I had never heard of him, and so I did some research. It turns out he is also widely celebrated as a translator of Russian literature. With regards to My Hollywood....poetry, cutting and wickedly clever, as well as tender, similar to Donald Justice, Jarrell, or LA poets like Henri Coulette or Bert Meyers. The images shine, the lines are tailored to perfection, and Dralyuk possesses a perfect ear. Nuanced. Ironic. All tinged by nostalgia for the shadows and palm trees of Hollywood, the bungalows and fading voices, the neon, the stunning blue heat. Get this book!
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June 23, 2022Such a stylish poetry collection ….so many delights here, and of course…I love poems about movies and Hollywood. The translations are fabulous— and who knew Vernon Duke wrote poetry?
January 3, 2023
Exuberant and joyful poetry textured from the stories and poems of the Los Angeles emigres, the book creates its own landscape and weather in the reader's heart and mind.
February 1, 2023
Very cool rhymes, very inventive poems
July 27, 2024
Really loved this collection of poems, how it describes Hollywood as both warm and brutal.b
December 3, 2022
Especially loved the Ellis translations. I too would like пончики on the beaches of LA
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July 5, 2023Delightful.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews