The Gray Notebook

by Александр Введенский, Alexander Vvedensky, Matvei Yankelevich (Translator)

Translated from Russian by Matvei Yankelevich.

"Back in print due to popular demand, this is UDP's fourth edition of The Gray Notebook by OBERIU poet Alexander Vvedensky.

The binding was done on a domestic sewing machine. The cover paper is a Fabriano Tiziano Charcoal, and the text paper is Neenah Avon White Classic Laid. The covers were letterpressed on our little Kelsey clam-shell. The binding was done on a domestic sewing machine at our workshop." (Text from UDP website at http://www.uglyducklingpresse.org/cat...)

Genres: Poetry

24 pages, Machine-sewn pamphlet

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Alexander Ivanovich Vvedensky (Александр Иванович Введенский; 1904–1941) was a Soviet poet with formidable influence on "unofficial" and avant-garde art during and after the times of the Soviet Union. Vvedensky is widely considered (among contemporary Russian writers and literary scholars) as one of the most original and important authors to write in Russian in the early Soviet period. Vvedensky considered his own poetry "a critique of reason more powerful than Kant's."
Most of his works (most notably the novel "Murderers, you are fools") were for ever lost in the chaos of the World War II and as the result of the atmosphere of the period: people would destroy any doubtful manuscripts in their possession as incriminating evidence.
The bulk of Vvedensky's extant works survived in the archive of Daniil Kharms. The archive itself was saved by Yakov Druskin, close friend of both poets, who, in the middle of the most deadly winter of Leningrad blockade, came to the abandoned and sealed apartment of arrested Kharms, removed the papers and preserved them all along.
Most of Vvedensky's poetry was not widely known during his lifetime and not published in Russia until much later. He was known in small circles of writers in Leningrad — Anna Akhmatova praised one of his later poems, "Elegy," very highly.
A two-volume collected works came out first in America, and then in Moscow in 1991.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexan...

Reviews

[S̶e̶a̶n̶ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I tried to catch the boat of words
I tested the word in cold and in fire,
but the hours drew in tighter and tighter.
And the poison reigning inside me
wielded power like an empty dream.
Once upon a time.

—from 'The Song of the Notebook'

[Mikhail Biriuchinskii · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best philosophical essays I’ve ever read. Vvedensky, true to his absurdist vision, depicts here his life's frustrations and some of the things he understands, or doesn’t seem to understand, about the order of life. The "Time and Death" section, highlighting the ambiguity of knowledge, reminds me of Velimir Khlebnikov’s poem "I don’t know whether the Earth is spinning or not...".

[Ross Holmes · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'll be honest, I read this one because I was at 99 and needed a short chapbook to make 100 by midnight, but I got way more than I bargained for. I'm gonna be thinking about this a lot.