Sample Poems

Issue 7

Sample Poem

Names with asterisks link to bios.

Untitled

To Mother

Edward Hopper: Western Motel, 1957

Song Sent to Hor khang from Prison

from Ficticia, II

written 1965

Gennady Aygi (1934–2006) was a Chuvash poet who wrote over twenty books of poetry in Russian and Chuvash, including In the Name of the Father, Now Always Snows, Field-Russia, and Veronica’s Notebook. Aygi, who lived and wrote in Moscow, is considered a classic of the late-Soviet avant-garde and was nominated for a Nobel Prize in 1991. Chuvash is listed as an endangered language by UNESCO and is little known to Western readers. Aygi’s Russian work has been widely translated, but “To Mother” is one of the first English translations of his Chuvash poetry.

Untitled

brighter than the heart of any single tree

and:

(Quiet places — supports of the highest strength
of singing. It takes away hearing there, un-
able to hold back. Places non-thoughts — if you understand
“non”).

translated from Chuvash by
Sarah Valentine

Sarah Valentine received her Ph.D. in Slavic Languages and Literatures from Princeton University and is currently a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Slavic Department at UCLA. Her work has appeared in Callaloo, Slavic and East European Journal, and ReDactions: Poetry and Poetics and her book, The Poetics of Gennady Aygi, is forthcoming in 2008.