Serhii Zhadan: Pain and hope in Kharkiv

Zhadan reading in Lviv

Below is a version of a poem by Serhii Zhadan that I have collated from various machine translations (with some Ukrainian-speaking input: thank you Anna!) You can donate to his efforts to buy various kinds of kit on his Facebook page (I just have), and see the results of his fund-raising there. You can also see the Ukrainian original text here and watch the poet reading it here.

And something must be given in return
when so much is taken away.
Something is granted, like a sudden experience of farewell. Because how could you learn about how a thread breaks, and how a confused heart stops in the middle of time?
Pain.
Pain and hope give you back the lost sense of this world.
They make the condensed mass of your being live, give it meaning.
Pain and hope, which you did not expect,
which were not discussed at the family table.

Where could you hear this voice of the forest,
that is frightened by the fire, who else could fix
your vision, tune it like a piano,
so that the eye does not go astray,
recognizing in the middle of a field
a twilight beast moving?

And if you have already endured, if you have been
a crazy tightrope act over the winter, gathering fears into a pile like books
from your parents’ bookshelves,
how can you now complain about the weighty
incident that brought you under the cold air of history?

So don’t you dare,
don’t you dare to complain where
the teeth of the mutilated landscape are clenched,
where those people do not weep who are burned by rage,
framed by the light,
sliced by the moonlight.

Pain and hope unite us amidst
openings in the dark sky.
Pain and hope, like the two lungs of a drowning girl,
from which they pumped out green pond water,
and returned her to life.
Pain and hope, like a house rebuilt
after fire.

Only in the midst of this breach, when the past recedes
like a shore into the darkness, only in the midst of great
patience
does an aftertaste of love appear for what
made you pertinent this spring, so visible, so clear,
set against the sun, illuminated in the wind.

I saw the sleepy women in the carriage grasping for an invisible voice, as if for a thread leading to the corridor.
I saw the lights going out in an instant over the men’s heads.
Children falling on the twilight, as if on their mother. Dogs falling silent when they saw the sun moving over the city.

But there will be this summer,
this majesty of the scorched river,
and the lads on an asphalt football pitch,
like letters in the constitution, bear witness to the equality of those born on the borders,
people’s equality and honesty‒from childhood
they get used to tearing their skin on the hard asphalt of courtyards,
they get used to pain and hope, they sew into the vivid gashes on their bodies
clots of the July sun.

But there will be summer,
and the trains returning to the city
like fishermen,
let them not return without a catch,
let them transport our hope through the cities –
bitter, like smoke,
like writing
bitter…

What edition of Cavafy should I get?

As a sweet apple reddens
on a high branch
at the tip of the topmost bough:
The apple-pickers missed it.
No, they didn’t miss it:
They couldn’t reach it.
[Sappho, LP 105a]

But the edition by John Mavrogordato on my topmost bookshelf is hardly likely to be the answer here.  We should start from what is available.  Looking on Amazon, the following appear to aim at a wide coverage:

The Collected Poems with parallel Greek text (Oxford World’s Classics)(tr Sachperoglou) [SACHPEROGLOU]

The Complete Poems of C.P. Cavafy by Daniel Mendelsohn [MENDELSOHN]

Collected Poems C.P. Cavafy: A New Translation by Aliki Barnstone [BARNSTONE]

C. P. Cavafy: Collected Poems Bilingual Edition (Lockert Library of Poetry in Translation) 
[LOCKERT]

C. P. Cavafy Collected Poems by Constantine P Cavafy, Edmund Keeley, et al [KEELEY-SHERRARD]

Complete Poems of Cavafy (tr Rae Dalven) [DALVEN]

Before Time Could Change Them: The Complete Poems of Constantine P.Cavafy  (tr Theoharis) [THEOHARIS]

C.P. Cavafy:  The Canon  [HAVIARAS]

Greek Text

Lockert, Haviaras and Sachperoglou include Greek texts, the others don’t.

Coverage

At a guess, Sachperoglou, Barnstone, Lockert, Keeley-Sherrard and Haviaras ought to include the 154 poems that Cavafy actually published while Dalven and Theoharis ought to include in addition the 70 or so unpublished poems while Mendelsohn certainly does include everything, including a number of unfinished poems, together with copious explanations

Translations

We note that the Lockert uses translations by Keeley-Sherrard; the difference is the inclusion of the Greek text.

Charles Simic says all the books of [Cavafy’s] poetry in translation [are] uneven and difficult to recommend over the others. A reader in love with Cavafy has no choice but to own several, since it often happens that where one translator comes up short, the other does better. 

It seems as though it is the translations of Keeley-Sherrard and Dalven that have become accepted as standard and they are also the channel by which Cavafy has permeated the English literary consciousness.  There is a useful comparison of versions of the second half of ‘Cities’ here, and I think that Keeley-Sherrard and Dalven do indeed look like English verse produced by an English speaker in a way that the others don’t.  Which does not necessarily mean that they are the best or even good translations.

Conclusion

In the absence of a complete poems with Greek text, I would go for the bilingual Lockert as at least having versions by which Cavafy is present in English together with the original texts.  Otherwise, Sachperoglou is inexpensive and easily available while if comprehensive coverage is important than Mendelsohn is both modern and exhaustive.

AFTERTHOUGHTS AND OTHER APPROACHES

Reviewing Mendeldsohn in the Guardian, Paul Bailey remarks that Cavafy sounds much the same in various translations and that he prefers Keeley-Sherrard to Mendelsohn.

He also refers to Marguerite Yourcenar’s Présentation critique de Constantin Cavafy suivie d’une traduction des Poèmes par M. Yourcenar et Constantin Dimaras which is another approach–one satisfied customer on amazon.fr says L’édition ne comprend pas des inédits, mais seulement les poèmes que l’auteur voulait voir publiés. L’étude préliminaire et les notes de M.Yourcenar sont très utiles pour comprendre l’univers cavafien, ils ont été precieuses pour mon premier approche à ce poète.

The site http://cavafis.compupress.gr/ has a wide selection of the poems in Greek and English and there are many other Cavafy-directed sites on the Internet with whose help you might be able to do without Greek texts or even any printed book.  With the same idea, one could try to get hold of the complete texts in instance, for instance Άπαντα τα ποιήματα. Επιμέλεια Σόνια Ιλίνσκαγια. Αθήνα: Νάρκισσος 2003 as listed in the bibliography here, but it’s not clear how easy it would be to obtain such volumes.

Finally, it is perfectly legal to learn Modern Greek, using for instance Modern Greek for Classicists.

Accordion song (Nikolai Yazykov)

Oh night, oh night like an arrow fly
Respite is bane to Svyatoslav
He only hungers to win or die
Oh night, oh night like an arrow fly
Respite is bane to Svyatoslav.

Tzimiskes, do you know your shield is strong?
That your chain mail is not delicate?
Our prince cries murder all night long
Tzimiskes, do you know your shield is strong?
That your chain mail is not delicate?

Give swiftest horses to your hordes
Or else our swords will catch them up
And they will not outrun our swords
Give swiftest horses to your hordes
Or else our swords will catch them up.

Boundless is the host you brought
Not many are we, but our blood is Slav
Our blows are sharp and they spare nought
Boundless is the host you brought
Not many are we, but our blood is Slav.

Oh night, oh night like an arrow fly
And fields for victory spread out wide
Rouse up now the warrior cry
Oh night, oh night like an arrow fly
And fields for victory spread out wide.

Nikolai Yazykov (1803-1846)

Песнь Баяна

О ночь, о ночь, лети стрелой!
Несносен отдых Святославу:
Он жаждет битвы роковой.
О ночь, о ночь, лети стрелой!
Несносен отдых Святославу!

Цимисхий! крепок ли твой щит?
Не тонки ль кованые латы?
Наш князь убийственно разит.
Цимисхий! крепок ли твой щит?
Не тонки ль кованые латы?

Дружине борзых дай коней;
Не то — мечи её нагонят,
И не ускачет от мечей.
Дружине борзых дай коней;
Не то — мечи её нагонят.

Ты рать обширную привёл;
Немного нас, но мы славяне:
Удар наш меток и тяжёл.
Ты рать обширную привёл;
Немного нас, но мы славяне!

О ночь, о ночь, лети стрелой!
Поля, откройтесь для победы,
Проснися, ужас боевой!
О ночь, о ночь, лети стрелой!
Поля, откройтесь для победы!

Note

In a series of campaigns against the Kievan Rus’ encroachment on the Lower Danube in 970–971, [John I Tzimiskes]  drove the enemy out of Thrace in the Battle of Arcadiopolis, crossed Mt. Haemus, and besieged the fortress of Dorostolon (Silistra) on the Danube for sixty-five days, where after several hard-fought battles he defeated Great Prince Svyatoslav I of Rus’. (Wikipedia article)

Ernest Dowson died here

159 Sangley Road

According to Arthur Symons’s memoir of Ernest Dowson:

[he] died at 26 Sandhurst Gardens, Catford, S.E on Friday morning, February 23, 1900….[he] was found one day in a Bodega with only a few shillings in his pocket, and so weak as to be hardly able to walk, by a friend, himself in some difficulties, who immediately took him back to the bricklayer’s cottage in a muddy outskirt of Catford, where he was himself living…

Meanwhile the Lewisham Council website states:

Died in the house of a friend at 26 Sandhurst Gardens (now 159 Sangley Road),

and we presume they ought to be a reliable source for addresses in Catford.

The house above looks as though it was built around 1900, so the bricklayer may have been living there while working on other houses nearby (which is why it was muddy–largely bare ground or a building site rather than houses) and letting out rooms.

‘Somewhere life is simple…’ (Anna Akhmatova)

Somewhere life is simple, the light does fall
Transparent, warm and cheering…
There a neighbour talks over the wall
At evening with a girl, only the bees are hearing
The tenderest talk of all.

Then we live grandly and with difficulty
And we see bitter meetings are rightly done
When the foolhardy wind abruptly
Breaks off utterance just begun.

But we will not exchange for anything the splendid
Granite city of glory and of doom
Ice resplendent on rivers’ wide room
Sunless gardens filled with gloom
And the Muse’s voice, scarce apprehended.

Picture from www.liveinternet.ru/users/romanovskaya_galina/

Ведь где-то есть простая жизнь и свет,
Прозрачный, тёплый и весёлый…
Там с девушкой через забор сосед
Под вечер говорит, и слышат только пчёлы
Нежнейшую из всех бесед.

А мы живём торжественно и трудно
И чтим обряды наших горьких встречь,
Когда с налёту ветер безрассудный
Чуть начатую обрывает речь, –

Но ни на что не променяем пышный
Гранитный город славы и беды,
Широких рек сияющие льды,
Бессолнечные, мрачные сады
И голос музы еле слышный.

А.Ахматова.

‘And the Lord said…’ (Boris Khersonsky)

And the Lord said:  Katsap, where is Khokhol thy brother?
And Katsap answered: I am not his keeper Lord
And the Lord said: You sat to eat together
You sang his songs, you put him to the sword!

And Katsap said: Khokhol is himself at fault,
He is a traitor, greedy, he nibbled all the fruit,
He has artillery in the yard and a gun in the vault
And he puts my first-born right into dispute.

And the Lord said: Not first-born, but born to hate!
Forgetting, Katsap, that the Lord is father to you.
For I will say to Peter, who stands at Heaven’s gate
I will say to Peter, not to open to you.

And the Lord said: Turk, where is thy brother, Khach?
And the Turk answered: Am I his keeper, Lord?
And the Lord said: You thought I would not catch
Weeping from the ground, would not hear, not reward.

And the Lord said: Kraut, where is thy brother, Yid?
And Kraut said, I am not his keeper, nay.
And the Lord said: His blood is yelling what you did,
For vengeance is mine, and I will repay.

И сказал Господь: “Кацап, где брат твой, Хохол?”
Ответил Кацап: “Не знаю, я не сторож Хохлу!”
И сказал Господь: “Ты с ним садился за стол,
ты пел его песни и ты толкаешь его во мглу!”

И ответил Кацап: “Хохол – он сам виноват.
Он – предатель, он жадина, он яблоки все надкусил,
у него в огороде пушка, а в шкафу автомат,
он старшему брату, мне, противится что есть сил!”

И сказал Господь: “Ты не старший, ты страшный брат!
Ты забыл, Кацап, что Отец твой – Бог.
Вот скажу Петру, что стоит возле райских врат,
вот скажу Петру, он не пустит тебя на порог.

И сказал Господь: “Турок, где брат твой, Хач?”
И ответил турок “Не знаю! Я не сторож Хачу!”.
И сказал Господь: “От земли возносится плач!
Ты думал, что я не услышу, что я смолчу?”

И сказал Господь: “Фриц, где же брат твой, Жид?”.
И ответил Фриц: “Не знаю, я не сторож Жидам!”
И сказал Господь “Кровь Жида за тебя говорит.
Ибо Мое есть отмщение и Аз воздам.”

‘On my hip I find there is no mole…’ (Larisa Dobrozorova)

On my hip I find there is no mole.
Everything is in its place when I wake
but that mustard-coloured flake…
Now, without distinguishing marks, I am whole.

Where is it? Did it flee? Was it kissed away?
Was it charmed away? Displaying your fidelity
at least to it, I suppose it’s likely that you may
not acknowledge in the public morgue a living me.

 

Просыпаюсь – а родинки нет
на бедре. Все на месте, а эта –
как снежинка, горчичного цвета…
Я теперь – без особых примет.

Где? Сбежала сама? Сцеловали?
Сколдовали? – Ей верность храня,
ты теперь опознаешь едва ли
в общем морге живую меня.

Best Poems of 2010

What’s it all about?

This is an anthology of poems for the year 2010; it contains from one to three poems by each of 129 authors.  I have translated the poems here.  Those rewarded with three entries are Natalya Gorbanyevskaya, Evgeny Karasev, Kirill Koval’dzhi, Aleksandr Kushner, Vadim Muratkhanov, Vera Pavlova, Vladimir Salimon, Sergei Stratanovsky, and Oleg Chukhontsev.  As far as I can see, however, Timur Kibirov wins first prize for the amount of space occupied with four pages when nobody else has more than three.  I think I agree with this assessment of Kibirov’s stature as a poet.

That immediately leads me to ask whether these can really be the best poems of 2010, with a maximum of three per author.  Surely the fourth best poem of the best author is likely to be better than the best poem of the 129th best one, assuming that ‘best’ means something unequivocal here?  On general principles, one would expect something like Zapf’s law to apply, so that the best poet had N poems of the required standard, the second best had N/2, the third best had N/3 and so on.  Maybe it’s something more like ‘A selection of poems produced by the best poets of 2010’.  In his preface, editor Maksim Amelin says that he wants to present not so much the poets themselves, more their works…

Why did I decide to do it?

It certainly seemed at the time that I was giving something back to the community, since trying to find a translation for poems in foreign languages is something that I use the Internet for.  It also made sure that I read every item in a book of poems with some care and attention, probably for the first time since George MacBeth’s Poetry 1900 to 1965 some 40-odd years ago.

What have I learned from doing it?

The overall impression was like one of those holidays where your coach drives into the next town, you get off, look round the points of interest (as we have seen, between one and three in number and of varying magnitudes), and then drive on to the next stopping-place.

I was struck by the wide range of forms, from the strictly traditional to free verse and poésie concrète.  Indeed, there were some poems that both in form and content could I thought have been dated to 1910, if not 1810.

As against that, it was good to see that a wide range of subjects were tackled:  mathematics, for instance, appeared three times, in connection with Grigory Perel’man, St Ursula, and Lili Brik.  There was also an engagement with public affairs if for instance Geopolitics of clothing, which seems to have been taken as a call to action in the Kremlin and elsewhere:

A torn-off sleeve got to call itself Ukraine
Forgetting about discipline, Russia once again

Didn’t mend that vexing tear–it was left undone
And continued her enjoyment, about the field to run.

…

You need a thread, a needle, and also dark of night
Close the gate and window, and sew that hole up tight.

As for translating the poems, those that are most fun are the ones that seem to be impossible at first sight, such as MRÓTS!  SKAÉR BNOÓS MRÓTS!. Otherwise, the main question is what to do about various kinds of closed forms. If you more-or-less reproduce them…well, to start off with, there are fewer rhymes in English than in Russian and feminine rhymes can easily sound very silly. A more principled argument is that if you conserve traditional forms, you are mapping the original onto a point that does not exist in contemporary English poetry, and perhaps thus making it an object of purely antiquarian interest.

As Vladimir Nabokov famously observed:

What is translation? On a platter
A poet’s pale and glaring head,
A parrot’s screech, a monkey’s chatter,
And profanation of the dead.

He was perhaps being overly charitable, something that did not happen very often.
Which are the best poems (and translations)?

The word ‘best’ is fraught with difficulties here, as we have seen above.  As regarding the original poems, I would go for Death of an old woman, which contains more than one kingdom of Russianness in a very small space, as a favourite.  I also liked From five to seven a lot, and ‘Do not be ill…’ is lovely as well.  ‘That which comes apart…’  and Sky are bloody good, and I was also impressed  by  ‘No canteen, and no shop…’ and ‘….to learn to react to the world’ .   I have to say that ‘Blessed is he…’ really is very very good, and thanks to some help from  Erik McDonald the translation’s not bad either.

Among the translations, I think that ‘Love does not pass…’ has the ring of a genuine poem.  At night  is pretty good as a translation, and I think that the English version of ‘Behind the curtain there hides a local god…’ is quite pleasingly Audenesque.

Public opinion

Judging by the number of ‘likes’ left on the various postings by users of wordpress, the most popular poems would be Pan Ch_sky, followed by ‘Without us, the critics will decide….’ and then After the storm.  The statistics for visits to individual postings would give first place to ‘The blind man’s getting bills for light’, followed in second place by ‘Along the fence…’ and in third ‘this city is flooded by glowing beams of light…’.  This last would also be in joint fourth place for ‘likes’, so may be the overall popular favourite.

And finally

Do feel free to leave a comment or to email me about any of this.  I would also like to thank Erik McDonald of xixvek for his encouragement and helpful suggestions, especially in being so diplomatic in cases where where I’d just misunderstood the original.

‘The pain has not worn off…’ (Yuri Kazarin)

The pain has not worn off, it has not passed–
and the soul has not grown tired, even so,
of dragging winglessly the body that was cast
so heavily into some heaps of snow,
where the toes pinched together are found so nesh
and ice beneath the heel is like a widow’s mite.

We are shadows of angels. We are flesh
not yet of darkness, no longer of light.

Не отболело, не прошло —
и как душе не надоело
влачить без крыльев, тяжело
в сугробах брошенное тело,
где пальцы ног свело в щепоть
и лед под пяткой, как монета.

Мы тени ангелов. Мы плоть
ещё не тьмы, уже не света.

‘I have understood how to set a word off…’ (Aleksei Vernitsky)

I have understood how to set a word off
My soul has been freed from the mist
Not in vain have I read Kheraskov
Not in vain have I read Kapnist.

But there are other faces with them
Alas, that trouble my gaze
The complex syllabic rhythm
The choir that is silent always.

Я понял назначенье слова,
Моя душа стала чиста.
Не зря я читал Хераскова,
Не зря я читал Капниста.

Но за ними — иные лики,
Увы, тревожащие взор:
Сложные ритмы силлабики,
Загадочный умолкший хор.