Articles & Reviews

Dear editorial staff, let me also hurry and stand up for poetry, following N. Petrova’s from Moscow example. It softly appears from her article “How Diplomats Stood Up For Russian Poetry” («Russkaya Mysl» №4555), there were better poets at the Tournament in Londons last year than its official victress, Marina Gershenovich from Dusseldorf. Unfortunately, there are inaccuracies in N. Petrova’s article, to which you pay attention unvoluntarily. In her opinion, only 38 votes out of the audience were given to Gershenovich, while a lot more people voted for Yu. Yurchenko. However, the judges made a different decision, and the golden crown of the tournament was given to Gershenovich. If I am not mistaken, the terms of the contest grant judges the right to make their decisions themselves, regardless of the audience’s opinion, i.e. exactly what happened in this case.
I didn’t have a chance to be at the Tournament in London, but I could compare the published texts of the queen of the Torunament, Marina Gershenovich to those of Yurchenko, who got just the second place. Sometimes, poet’s personal charisma and will magnetize the audience, which, it seems, happened in London, where Yurchenko won the public. However, each in the least unbiased reader with a well-formed taste will easily see how big the distance is between Gershenovich’s poetry and Yurchenko’s fairly interesting works. And here I cannot help but agree with the judges’ opinion, despite the fact that there for sure were those among them, whom Yurchenko would defeat in a free poetic contest. That’s how it is nowadays – who becomes judges are rather socially successful people than those who achieved extraordinary hights in the arts.
Nevertheless, I find the judges’ resolution to be fair. Marina Gershenovich has what Mandelshtam called in his Fourth Prose “work off the voice”. And that is while a lot of people just write, and write a lot and well. Petrova makes a hint that for his own writing the founder of the London Tournament, Oleg Borushko, used Yurchenko’s work as a model, and did it so carefully that some of Borushko’s poems resemble those of Yurchenko. I personally don’t understant why that should be a subject matter for a debate. The most important is that the art wins.
Yet he faces purely material obstacles: finding an auditorium, get the audience there, cover postal expenses, travel expenses for the judges and above that the European level of accomodation for them. Of course, nowadays private persons have financial means, and some of them invest even into literature, not only football, although in this case one cannot count on a quick return. So let’s be indulgent to the fact that not always everything goes smoothly. The most important thing is that the practice of such investments is beeng built up, from which something also falls into Russian speaking authors all around the world.

Nikolay Bokov, Paris
“RUSSKAYA MYSL”, June 2005

Marina Gershenovich won the first prize in the international contest of poetry in 2004 (London).

After each Tournament the head of judges is plied with questions: how do you justify your decision? The audiece voted for that poet, whereas the judges chose another one – why?

At the Tournament of poets of 2004 I voted for Marina Gershenovich. Here is my point of view. If we leave aside phylosophical lyric poetry, all the rest could be divided for me into “conditional” lyric poetry and “direct” lyric poetry.

When they say, “poetry”, what I hear first of all is “lyric poetry”. I am not enticed with rhythmical acrobatics, sophisticated metaphors, interrupted breath, phylological finds, variety devices. The ancestral mark of “conditional poetry” is this: simple feeling is draped with culturological context. Creative impuls is dissolved in hints, it takes the form of half-familiar conditional characters – a reader reacts to them briskly and quickly. Just like he would to the greeting exchange: «Hi, how are you?» – «Great!»

The overwhelming majority of the poets are those who writes “conditional” lyrics.

Florid banality of the “conditional” lyric poetry is as common as a slight cold and just as hard to cure. It is also hard to diagnose in the poetic mass: it requires an immensly intent look.

It is much harder to write “direct” lyric poetry, and it is rarely found. Such writing requires a greater creative effort: spiritual courage for reckless self-analysis and precise focus at the look inside yourself. In a way such writing dictates not to love yourself, beloved, too much. And not many succeed in that.

“Direct” poetry is rarely pretty on the outside, that’s why it less attracts unsophisticated audience. Life of a poet who writes “direct” lyric poetry is harder, and he gets applaud less frequently. It seems that his poetry is bordering triteness, because the poet speaks in a very plain way. At the same time he always realizes: it is way easier to speak in a compicated manner, using hints and beating about the bush (to which we all, being young, pay inevitable tribute to – the tribute of thoughtlessness). But the author consciously chooses not to be led by all that. The vector of his effort is aimed to another direction: to catch and distinguish high simplicity from simple triviality in what he sees and writes. The distinction is subtle and hard to catch in poetry for an inexperienced ear. However it moves the creative work of such a poet to a totally different poetic grade, and it places the author into the weight class that a referee cannot ignore.

Read Marina Gershenovich.

Oleg Borushko, Head of the judges of the contest, 2004.

The name and the poetry of Marina Gershenovich, Siberian native who now lives in Germany, started appearing in the Russian media after she won at the poetic contest “Pushkin in Britain”. To be precise, it wasn’t even a contest, but a poetic tournament, as its founders called it. And Marina not exactly was acknowledged as its winner, but, as it was usual at the times of tournaments, she was announced the Queen of that poetic stadium. The newspapers presented the event in a fine way. “Our guest is Pushkin tournament’s Queen”. Meanwhile year and a half passed. All the fuss and foam around the pretty lable – “queen” – have subsided. I’m holding Marina Gershenovich’s book of poetry “In Search of Angel”. I’ve read it many times and rereading it again and I realize Marina doesn’t need any crowns or titles. Her title is much higher than that of a winner of another contest. Marina is a POET, and any adjectives like unique or talented would be quite irrelevant here. A poet cannot be not unique or not talented. A versemaker can be, but not a poet. I confess that in a long time I hadn’t seen such a clear, without a slightest track of flippery or mocking Russian language in the modern poetry.

…и тихо земля отходила ко сну.

Все ангелы вслушивались в тишину,

и птицы прислушивались к наклону

расправленных крыльев, и крылья – к ветрам,

деревья прислушивались к небосклону,

к деревьям – холмы

и каменья – к холмам..

“От Духа…” едва долетело до слуха

Марии, и вторила Дева: “От Духа…”

(“Апокриф”)

There is no formal experiments whatsoever, no unusual rythmics or games of word-formation in her poetry. She simply doesn’t need it. Her thought and form are so unadulterated that any, even the most perfect but artificial constructions would only destroy that naturalness. It is that great simpleness that is not obtained by any effort or working capacity. How many times it has been that I read written by somebody and wrote myself respectfully about somebody the words “complex poetry”. Yet complexity is not nearly always accompanied by profundity. And there still is there, in the rarified regions of the atmosphere of Russian literature, that plain poetry, to which you can add nothing. The plainness of perfection is the main distinction of Marina Gershenovich’s poetry. Just recently Marina in co-authorship with Vita Barshteyn translated from German into Russian the much-talked-of and successfully screened book of Erica Fischer “Aimee & Jaguar”. Part of Marina’s work there is brilliatnly translated poetry of Mascha Kaleko, German poet. It seems that Marina’s star as a master of poetic translation has just begun to rise. However, we’ll have an opportunity to talk about that in the future.

Poet Marina Gershenovich’s name is for sure familiar to many of those who read in Russian and love poetry and bard songs. A year has passed since Marina’s first American tour. At that time she was just “crowned” – got a prize and the title of Queen of the international Pushkin Tournament in Great Britain. A new Marina Gershenovich’s tour on the East Coast of the US is expected this fall. What she is bringing here is new poems, translations from German and English as well as just published “The Book of Four”. To those who haven’t had a chance to be at Marina’s literary evenings last year, to those who haven’t read her poems and haven’t heard the songs written to those poems, in short, to those for whom this name is new, we are presenting excerpts from her autobiography for “The Book of Four” and a short interview.

I was born in Novosibirsk. My childhood fell on 1960s, maturity — on the time of the collapse of the unbreakable (Soviet Union). I never had and still don’t have any political predilections. By social orientation I am more of a solitary sniper than an ordinary member of an active poetic group. I have loved and still love to travel and change trades. I gave birth to my son and brought him up. I worked wherever I had a chance to, perforce — sometimes for a roof over my head, sometimes for my daily bread. In the middle 1980s a kind military commissar enrolled me into a workers’ detachment to be sent to Afghanistan, however I was stopped by the city authorities for never being a member of the Komsomol. I began to compose poetry in early childhood and later on I started writing it down. I have planted two trees: a mountain-ash in Novosibirsk and an Italian pine by Berlin. I’ve written about fifty songs, I got a high award and diploma at Valery Grushin Festival (1987), after which my passion for guitar lapsed. I took part in the albums: «Ves» (Riga, 1992), «Sisters» (Saint-Petersburg, 1993) and in a project of the International Festival of Music and Poetry (Remscheid, 1993). My first book of poetry, “Conversations at the Crossroad”, was published in 1995 , and in 2002, my second book, “In Search of Angel”, came out of print with the support of “Vita Nova” publishing house (Saint-Petersburg). Автор проекта «Книга на четверых». In August 1998 my family and I moved to Germany, since 2000 I’ve lived in Dusseldorf. I translate German and English poetry, write poetry myself and still work for living wherever I get a chance.

Well, as appears from your autobiography, all is alright in regards of a tree and a son. What about a home?

Do you remember Marina Tsvetaeva’s line: “My home is in my heart – it is literature”? This is very accurate… As for the earthly home, I would like to have several in order to show up in them at different times. It must be due to this household polygamy that I own none. And here is Mascha Kaleko’s line: “The garden is not drooping. For I don’t have a garden…”

How did your relationship with music shape after your passion for guitar passed? In the USA you plan on giving concerts together with Alexander Alabin, a musician, composer, improvisator. What does it proceed from?

Since as long back as late 1980s, a reference to the musical duet of Alabin-Shvets indicated a good taste fo the bards’ circles where the guys were known and loved. Their performing geography was impressive even before each of them moved to the US. When I got an opportunity to visit New York, the first thing I heard from Nikolay Yakimov, much respected by me musician and author-performer of songs to poems by Gumilev, Brodsky, Gubanov and poets of the new century, was, “Alex Alabin lives there…”

Alabin and I got in touch and decided to prepare a concert together. At the same time we’ll meet to make our “blind” acquaintance a real one.

A lot of poets doesn’t like and is afraid of their poems to be sung. The main ideologist of this position, so to say, is Alexander Kushner. You seem to adhere to a different point of view. Your poetry is sung by many, in particular, by one of the most popular in today’s Russia musicians, composers and performers, Elena Frolova and others. Aren’t you afraid that those who sing will misrepresent the meaning and style of your poetry?

There is a very few people whom I confide in that matter. You cannot forbid singing poetry. Just like you cannot impose it. Try and offer Elena Frolova, Evgenia Logvinova, or Nikolai Yakimov something that is not to their liking, what they don’t find intresting, what is illiterate or soulless… They won’t sing that. On the other hand, not everyone has a gift for fsensing the word, not everyone who writes music is gifted. That is when such “illegitimate” – unloved – songs happen, the songs that will distress the poet and won’t make the musician happy.

Does a poet need PR? I realize that the answer that lies on the surface is “no”. But let’s dig farther down. So you won at the international poetic Pushkin Tournament in London and the press began write more about you. Including the kind of press that normally doesn’t pay attention to poetry. That’s understandable – «Queen of the Tournament» sounds impressive. However it’s just a chance. Poetry has no connection to votes of any judging committee. That is where my question about promotional campaigns in poetry comes from.

First I’ll allow myself to cite Lena Kazantseva’s lines, both amuzing and bitter: «Поэта не надо раскручивать, поэт, он не карусель. Поэта надо заучивать – Отсель и досель…»

This is exactly what so called poet’s PR consists of: of the oralness, which means transmission of poet’s lines from mouth to mouth. Poetry cannot be thrust on, it cannot even be offered. It is given to those who are ready to accept the gift.

Victory at a contest (any contest, by the way) harbors the following quiddity: if you were, is now and is able to continue your existence in the built up by you creative space, то завоеванный титул, then the won title, stipend or encouragement prize will only reinforce your intention to stay furhter within your inner space.

In other words, you remain exactly what you have been. If, for example, a baker wins at a poetry contest, he most likely will remain a baker…

What is funny is that in London we were warned right after the tournament was over, “Now you are on your own; whatever you do for yourselves, the result will depend on that.” I don’t remember how it sounded literally, but the point was exactly that. I could just leave. And continue to write poetry. I could leave and not write poetry. I didn’t provoke anybody to write articles about me after the contest. “Lady Info” magazine (London) fell into my hands a year later. I read the material, recalled that, yes, a year before I gave the interview to the owner of the magazine Elena Rogozhina. But there was a chance for the interview not to take place. Rogozhina is a busy person, and I flew back to Germany the day after the tournament was over. And we never saw each other or correspond again. That was another mere chance.

The same exact way – as an ordinary phenomenon in the system of landmark occurances – New York, and not only New York, heaved in my sight…

Recently you appeared as a co-translator of the book names “Aimee & Jaguar”. The book has been long know, read, a much-talked-of movie was made based on it. And only now the book came to the Russian readers. To my opinion, your translations of the poetry by Mascha Kaleko and the two main characters of the book are excellent.

What attracted you? Uncommonness of the plot – love between a Jewish woman and a Nazi’s wife in the extreme situation, since all that happens in Nazi Germany?

Or the fact that this is not a fiction plot, but a real story? Or after all it was quality of the poetry to translate that became decisive?

Not as much the romance between Felice Schragenheim and Lily Wust attracted me as the movie pushed me away. I didn’t like it and didn’t finish watching it. But on the other hand, the lively soul that wrote rhymes at the hight of the brown plague, write them with gaiety that resembled carefree playfulness of a blind puppy at a precipice, – yes, that stirs up if not deep astonishment, then at least candid interest… Erica Fischer’s book I got in mail from Vita Barshteyn, the main translator of “Aimee & Jaguar” into Russian. It was her who asked me to read everything carefully and engage myself in translation of Felice’s poems. And I found the book much more profound and serious than the movie….

What do you think of the fate of the Russian language in emigration?

Well, this question is both easy to deal with and hard to formulate the answer…

What is simple and clear: a person who loves his mother tongue won’t lose it. Especially if he has wielded the Russian language in full measure, meaning that he used it with the constructive purpose. There is one exception: amnesia.

And what makes this question difficult is this: realization of the creative potential of a language depends on the political situation in the world. And in individual states. There is a choice of writing without being published… But what kind of destiny is it? It is a misfortune that plays its role in one or another writer’s destiny…

Geography of your literary concerts allows you to compare different audiences – Russian speaking Diaspors of Germany, USA, Israel, England, Spain… Are there any differences between them and if yes, what are those differences?

There are differences there, but they are quantitative rather than qualitative. In any auditorium, the audience could prove to be ready to perceive somebody’s creative work or not reafy for that (I’m talking first of all about public appearances of a person without an established name).

Where else would you like to visit to, to whom would you like to read your poetry?

After I translated Gohttfrid Behn’s “Osterninsel” (“Easter Island”) I took it into my mind to visit to Easter Island. The stone idols are good in the sense that they don’t care about any poetry, including mine, and at the same time they are silent and grand…

Bogdan Kosh
“TV Guide”, New York, September 16-23, 2005

This conversation took place in autumn 2004. The occasion was the first place at the poetic contest “Pushkin in Britain” where Marina Gershenovich won the Golden Crown. “Best Russian poets abroad” nomination has been conducted in London since 2003 and attracted Russian poets from Germany, France, USA, Israel, Ireland, Baltic countries. Now I realize that this interview is not complete, it has just been started, and some of the important topics are only barely touched: What is contemporary Russian poetry for the people who have found themselves for one reason or another in different countries? How does it connect us all, speaking the same language and dispersed around the world? I am very lucky – Marina and I have something in common, and that is our hometown: the fate and the personality of the person who grew up and matured in this city, and preserved and developed her gift, although it’s such a difficult city, with metal and concrete, interest me immensely. I am curious about what comes from where in Marina’s “workshop”… An interview taken over the mail has its advantages, such as an opportunity to take a bit more time to think the questions over, look deeper or even repeat a question. However it also has its limitations: the energy exchange, recharging on quick questions and answers here, aparently, is not as intensive as it could be in a conversation with the live voice and intonations. When we meet in person – and I have no doubt on that it will happen – I’m going to ask Marina to continue this narely started conversation.

I.T.: It seems to me that poetry for Russian speaking people abroad serves as some knitting thread – is it really this way? There are probably many such threads, but what do you think of this one, the one to which you can relate so closely? How does it feel THERE to you and to those listening to you?

M.G.: See what happens: what brings Russian speaking people abroad together is that art song that more or less familiar to all of us. Okudzhava, Vizbor, Vera Matveeva, early Ancharov (late Ancharov is rather good prose), Gorodnitsky, Dulov, Vladimir Lantsberg, Alexander Galich… A pretty large crowd usually gathers for song concerts. People come to hear guest singers who sing their own songs. Luferov, Anpilov, Yakimov, Berezhkov, Mirzayan, Kochetkov, Veronika Dolina, Elena Frolova, Tatyana Aleshina, project “Songs of Our Century” – the managers bravely announce date and time of a concert. And rather small halls get packed with the audience. This is the path of Singing Poetry. It is a new generation of poetic musicians, if you wish. As for poetic soiree, it is not that simple. Earlier this year a good poet-translator from Moscow, Vyacheslav Kupriyanov, was here with a visit (he translates Rilke, German and Austrian poetry of 19-20th centuries). By the way, he is your and my townsman. There were 7 people in the audience. Was it a failure of those who had arranged the performance? Or the reason is that there is no interest to the translated lyrics? Both are possible… The major problem of the Russian speaking community abrod: practically everyone writes. Everyone is a writer, everyone is a poet. Even those who used to neglect their correspondence before they left their hometown; those who rarely took a ball-popint pen intor their hand; those who were in bad with literature as a school subject; who would buy books based on the back color, regardless of the object-matter, in exchange for scrap paper… A person in a strange land is surrounded by certain sensory and emotional vacuum. Being turned loose plus having too much free time on one’s hand in case of unemployment, – that’s how the desire to express oneself publicly arises. The bar of the standart of talent is lowered, the word loses its value, pretensions build up in direct ratio with mediocrity of what’s written… Sometimes a migrant tries to understand himself, putting together some sort of his lifetime report on paper. But more frequently than not this process takes seize of a person in a foreign habitat because of idleness. That’s how endless poems, odes, short stories of the very local importance, songs with the accompanment of three chords, come to life. This kind of creativity probably easily unites people. There are clubs and parlors where people sing to each other, recite poems, there are several active Russian language periodicals, in which, by default, those are published most frequently who has connections with the expat community. This is how things are in Germany, in America, in Israel – in particular, “Jerusalem Magazine” also prefer their fellow citizens. In Siberia there are their own priorities. Ukraine will give you their names. Moscow, Vladivostok will share theirs with you… That’s the way it’s always been. I’m not going to talk about the quality of the diaspora publications; they all are different, I would say, the quality levels are jumpy just like the temperature graph of a person with a fever…

I.T.: You do public readings every once in a while, perhaps less frequently than it would be desirable, but nevertheless it’s Moscow, Saint Petersburg, London, New York, Germany… In your opinion, what draws people to poetry nowadays in such different cities? Indeed, in New York with its mad tempos the word of poetry sounds rather like gentle music. What kind of people’s faces do you see? What is it they like? What stirs their souls?

M.G.: In Germany it only makes sense to recite poetry outloud if there is at least any minimal turnover of the audience. There is a certain number (plus-minus two tens) of people in each town who are interested in poetry. Such people exist and have always existed at all times and ages. They also exist among the migrants. Those who want two often and, what is most important, actively get the local audience’s attention, have to keep in mind the fact that routine spoils the whole affair. Regular routine. A good theater goer wouldn’t watch the same play more frequently than twice a year; and it applies even more to such a chamber janre as poetry! It is not clownery or variety composition, it’s not even art song that, such near and dear, accompanied one’s youth and one can feel nostalgic, reciting in one’s head or outloud verses of the favorite songs… A good poetic soiree lasts for about two hours. If somebody gets interest in my poetry, he can find a book, printed out manuscript or a web page. Reading with one’s eyes off paper gives a correct perception of the poetic word. What I am trying to say is that you cannot thrust yourself, it is inapropriate for a poet to hold the stage all year round. This kind of soirees don’t bring any profit in. The rates against the European cost of life are nominal. As for the soirees in New York, PHiladelphia and Boston… They all differed from one another, but yet they had something in comman, and that was some eliteness of the listeners-readers. As a rule, those are people not rottened by the Broadway kind of taste and rhythm, ideology and paranoid compulsive advertisement product. They are sane, calm, smart and friendly people, well read, of all kinds of trades. From the USA, I brought several books, collections of poetry and stories by the authors whom I didn’t know before. By the way, the Internet reader is also a peculiar visitor of the soirees. Those are mainly young people, they have heard the name or some audio file and came to the soiree to get the full picture: to see the author and meet him. You are asking about the faces of those who come to a soiree? As for those who have been to my readings in America, they were people of different classes and faiths, of various ages… At the beginning of the evening faces in the audience differ from those they become by the end – and that is a sign. No matter how tired or distrustful people entered the hall, at the end of the evening I can see that their faces are shining. I cannot express how much it makes me happy!

И.Т.: What gives you support? What helps you? Creative lonelyness, and that can easily happen to a poet – how do you survive it? (Marina, I meant particularly moral support.)

М.Г.: Creative loneliness… The necessety of feeling the support… Moral? I suppose. It is more needed and more important than any pay. You are yet to deserve it. The material support comes in easier. Let’s start from afar: what is after all the material support? Earned honorarium. Or the money given as a gift for a publication. It is in fact a one-time action. Emergency case of assistance. Single-shot support in a certain process… A person who writes is the same person who speaks by means of the chosen form: proze, poetry, journalism, essay, recitation of poetry to musical accompaniment… anything… so that person begins with himself. A researcher of somebody else’s creative work first of all gives his own name, etiquette requires to introduce himself. What will he say to people? Amators write for themselves. Professionals also write for themselves. But… both inevitably come into collision with one other substance that I would call “area of perception”. The way his exposition is depends on what he, the writer, is himself. He is his own idea of a form, subject, language, level of literacy and perception of the word in space. You can build any house (the old fairy tale about three piglets!); question is: who will live in it? The same applies to a piece of writing, no matter prosaic or poetic… Is the house that Jack built good enough? Was Nuf-Nuf smart enough to reason out that foul weather is mightier than the frail substance of the brushwood and chips, out of which he was going to build a hut for himself? Or it is a fortress house after all?… What I’m trying to say is that without a clear understanding of the Area of Perception, the Essence of Creation is doomed to failure. And when the Area of Perception is lost out of sight (for one reason or another), shows depriciation or even for some time sinks into darkness, the process of creation slows down. There begins what one can call creative loneliness. Obviously I’m not talking about the fact that poetry is not created collectively! Whom are you addressing, the on who writes? And what for you took up the pen? So… I believe that the Area of Perception lies at the borderline between the one who takes up the pen and his potential reader. There is correlation there. Whatever you are like, the same is your reader. I am not talking about the mass poetry. Such thing doesn’t exist whatsoever, to tell you the truth. In case of total fame there is either the reader is fooled (involved into the game) or the writer is elevated to the rank of a taste dictator… Both are rather social-political phenomena, they are beyond the laws of poetry and writer’s ethic.

И.Т.: You don’t at all resemble the authors who don’t feel that they are in contact with that Area of Perception or, moreover, ignore it. How do you tune yourself to the Area of Perception? Is it something that is given a poet or something, for which he takes on responsibility? Do you form that Area of Perception, do you take it into your hands? Do you have to pull the Perception up to your level?

М.Г.: I’ll allow myself a joke: their ears will get ripped off. Or I will break my back. The Area of Perception is big, whil a person who writes poetry is just a person. And I don’t wish to “convert” anybody “in my religion”, I only seek those close to me in spirit, in the creative work… Something probably is going on, something is changing in the world, just like the world in me changes as I realize that I am not alone… But it is necessary not only see those kindred spirits, contact with them is very important. When the major receiver ot the information, of the word is missing, the morse code (in other words: poetry), bears for SOS signal all the time, and I’ve grown tired of that monotonous note back in Siberia. I managed to change the direction, intonation and even density of the poetic idea upon my leave; there is no way back. Just as there no way back to Siberia. In theory it exists, what could happen to it? But practically there is none. Just like the way to one’s own youth, own inexperience and pain that one had to go through. If I were to choose the place to live and work, it hardly would be Siberia… The same applies to the idea of a poem as the idea of thought and feeling. So, once I switched from the SOS signal to some kind of lively and light music (the kind that is aimed at contemplation and based on observations, discoveries – the ones that were new to me – and to an attempt to study the language of communication, right away it became clear to me that SOS signals had not required a specific companion, it had been despare rhymed into three morse signals, letter to the vacancy if you will… And you can only share something you’ve found with somebody… Not with the vacancy! So it turns out that I, like a fool at the wait, was singing carols in front of the closed doors… Doesn’t matter whether there were celebrations there or grieving, the poit was that the doors were locked. The same was happening even before I left, at the time when we all spoke the same language… Although there is only a few people out of the immigrants who speaks decent Russian, and they are spread all around Germany, and the communication with them is only possible if they are found and contact with them established. I’ve wanted badly to have enough energy to find the Area of Perception… No, that’s not it… I’ve wanted to earn the right to enter that Area. It seems that so far I’ve managed to feel it, to get response… Sometimes even such a simple mechanism as a morse key, can get broken; and how much this is true for the complex system of prosody and perception of poetry…

I.T.: What about the image of “your reader” – has it changed between the moment you left Siberia and current time? I’ve got so many new encounters, new listeners and readers, who probably differ from those back in Siberia. Has the quality transformation taken place or these are different readers?

M.G.: My reader is not necessarily humanities specialist; he loves life, classical literature, music, arts, it doesn’t matter where he lives, it is equally not important how many laguages he speaks if he has imagination and trusts his intuition; I could not tell his age, since not everyone who is young is necessarily stupid and not each old one is wise… It is amazing that people who live in different countries, after getting acquainted with each other through my books, get along beautifully, have a lot in common, often their viewpoints and preferences happen to be the same. Yet their characters and temperaments can be different!

I.T.: Perhaps, this image of a reader can change something in your work, help in your creative transformation?

M.G.: Only God and fate take part in the creative transformation or, rather, motion, Inga. Yet God often acts through people…

Inga TOPESHKO, Novosibirsk

Best of all Marina introduced herself in “Book for Four”, as if responding to the questions of some imaginary questionnaire. Was born in Novosibirsk. Childhood fell on the late 60s. Have never had and don’t have any political predilections. By social orientation she is rather a lone sniper than an ordinary member of an active poetic group. She is a steady nordic character with a touch of southern unbalanced state. She’s loved and still loves to travel and change trades. Gave birth to her son and bought him up. Used to work wherever she had a chance, out of necessety – either for the roof over her head or for her bread. In the mid 80s she was accepted by a kind military commander to a detachment of workers to be sent to Afghanistan, but stopped by the city authorities for not having ever been a member of All-Union Leninist Young Communist League. She started composing poems at an early age, but began to write them down significantly later. She passionately love animals, and that is mutual… (……) At the end of 1998 she and her family moved to Germany, since 2000 she’s lived in Dusseldorf. She translates German and English poetry, writes poems and still works wherever she has a chance to, for example, for two years she worked at a casino, where, to the horror of her German golleagues, managed to write and translate dusing business hours… (…..) This is Marina’s first visit to Kishinev. “There is -7C in Siberia right now, and here everything is blooming. Quite European whether”. Marina got to Moldavia thanks to Vita Barshteyn, our former fellow citizen who’s lived in the US for 12 years now. Vita translated into Russian once sensational and put on screen documentary book by Erica Fischer Aimee & Jaguar. The book is based in a tragic story of the Jewish girl named Felice, who dies in 1944. Vita offered Marina Gershenovich to translate the heroine’s poems. She was familiar with Marina’s own poetry. The translated book was published by one of Kishinev publishing houses, Depozit en Gros. That’s how the project gained truly international scope. In her juvinilias Felice imitated Mascha Kaleko, well-known in the pre-war Germany, a poet of Jewish roots, who wrote in German. Thomas Mann spoke highly of her peculiar, ironic, unsentimental poetry. At the late 1930s, Kaleko emigrated to the United States, later moved to Israel, and passed away in 1975 in one of Zurich hospitals. Mascha Kaleko’s poems (also in Gershenovich’s translation) are placed as an appendix to Aimee & Jaguar. Quite different are brilliantly translated by Marina into Russian poems of Gertud Kolmar. Up to now this killed in Auschwitz Jewish poet, who wrote in German, was considered very hard to translate into other languages. Kipling’s poetical work is on our guest’s program as well as Mozart’s poems, about existence of which many readers don’t even have a slightest idea. (……) Marina conceived and implemented the project The Book of Four, where the Russian poets of the same generation are introduced, the poets, whom time and circumstances settled in different countries – Israel, Germany, USA, Ukraine (which is this days also a foreign country to us). So, now the wind of polgrimages brought this citizen of the world to us. LIterary people and poetry lovers came to her reading. Marina was telling about herself, answering questions, but most of all she was was reciting poems – her own as well as translated. Very good ones, by the highest – Hamburg – score.

Alexandra Junko, Kishinev, 2006

In 2006 “The Book for Four” was published in Saint-Petersburg – the project, for which Marina was an originator and participant, the publication implemented with an active contribution on the part of the Artistic association called AZiA. Poetry evenings – presentations of the project – took place in Germany, the USA, Sweden, Moldova, Russia. The four authors are Russian poets who live in Germany, Israel, the US and Ukraine. Dostoevsky once wrote on the openness of Russian culture, on its capability to absorb other European cultural languages – even having gone abroad, to different countries, Russian literature continues a dialog with us, no matther from which geographic point it’s lead, no matter what new cultural environment nourishes it. It keeps on developing then in its international version. Without losing neither its power, nor its impact on us.

Lately, Marina Gershenovich has been translating a lot: Kipling, Mascha Kaleko, Gertrud Kolmar, Shel Silverstein, other authors; she’s been published in books and periodicals in Moscow, Baltimore, New York. A selection of her work was published in the most prominent poetic anthology “The Century of Translation-XXI” edited by E. Vitkovsky, Vodolei Publishers publishing house. And although poetic translation always and unconditionally is an act of creation of a new piece of art, Marina Gershenovich’s translations of poetry preserve the intonation, the spirit of the author’s text and reconstitute its substance. A poem is a concentration of some poet’s experience, emotion, state of being expressed in the language of rythm, images, associasions. Marina’s poetic translations preserve and convey this particular author’s experience, emotion, state of being.

Marina Gershenovich’s poetry is closest of all to Pasternak’s tradition: emotionality conveyed through rythm and structure, word appropriateness, classical verse. The images are cinematic: when you read or listen, your attention follows the word as if it was a movie camera:

Течением река на одичалый плес

выносит мелкий сор, и щепочки, и перья…

А домик твой стоит — как ветер не унес? —

с единственным окном и скошенною дверью.

От сырости порог сосновый почернел,

на кровле дранки нет, лишь хвоя да солома.

Мне хочется сказать, что есть всему предел,

но в этот самый миг выходишь ты из дома,

мой ропот на судьбу и затаенный вздох

опередив своим безмолвным появленьем…

Должно быть, за тобой присматривает Бог.

И, верно, за свое спокоен он творенье.

And just like a film director who, showing us the outer world, proves to be capable of transfering our attention to the “inner person”, the same way Marina Gershenovich’s “cinematic” word is capable of turning us to our own depth:

В объятиях седеющей равнины,

где, год прожив, стареешь за двоих,

ни дерева, ни мрамора, ни глины

ты не найдешь для идолов своих.

В окошко глядя, как в пустое око,

зимы бесснежной, где-то в январе,

смиришься с тем, что взгляд твой одиноко

завис на одиноком фонаре.

От созерцанья этого предмета,

когда ничем не хочешь дорожить,

сойдешь с ума, приняв источник света

за новую звезду, и будешь жить.

No matter how thoroughly we research poetry and its laws, the secret of its impact on us will remain undisclosed. The poetic word seems to reflect, like a mirror, something essential in our inner world, when it is heard and calls for resonance, so when we come accross it, we feel grateful for this precise fit.

INGA TOPESHKO,
from the materials for a publication in “Navigator” newspaper,
Akademgorodok, Novosibirsk, September 2006

To participate in the tournament, a person first had to be a poet, secondly — a Russian-speaking emigrant. A third requirement was to bring up in their poetic soul and living in a foreign land a poem out of Pushkin’s line –

«What London needs, is too early for Moscow…»

Out of 300 manuscripts received from 20 countries, 13 masterpieces had been selected – and those turned out to be the ones needed by London, to where the authors were invited for the final contest: Victoria Barkova (Germany), Karina Bakhmutskaya (Germany), Michael Brif (USA), Guinn (USA), Marina Gershenovich (Germany), Svetlana Dion (Spain), Alexei Ivanov (Ireland), Ksenia Krapivina (Lithuania), Isaak Kroza (USA), Michael Siper (Israel), Yuri Yurchenko (France), Tatiana Yufit (England).

Ksenia Krapivina was announced as “Tournament’s Hope”.
Victoria Barkova was marked “For Poetic Audacity” .
Cup of the Audience’s Sympathy was earned by Michael Brif.
The Bronze Crown and the title of Herald were received by Alexei Ivanov.
Yuri Yurchenko received the Silver Crown and the title of Vice-King.
Marina Gershenovich became the Queen of the Tournament and possessor of the Golden Royal Crown.

The process of choosing the Queen was difficult and dramatic. The judges included

• Rimma Kazakova, First Secretary of Moscow Writers’ Union,
• Yuri Polyakov, editor in chief of “Literaturnaya Gazeta” (“Literary Newspaper”),
• Michael Popov, secretary of the Writers’ Union of Russia,
• Seva Novgorodtsev, the host of “Sevaoborot” talk show on radio BBC,
• Vlad Parkhomenko, the leader of “Abrau Durso” music band,
• Maria Gordon, Wueen of the Tournament-2003,

and others.
Their voices got divided between two candidates – Gershenovich and Yurchenko.
After a discussion and the second vote there was they got the same number of votes again.
Then, the chief judge and main organizer of the poetic tournament, Oleg Borushko, pronounced his verdict. He explained his choice by “vector of straigt forward lirics” that is present in Marina Gershenovich’s poetry.

OUR MAN IN QUEEN’S KITCHEN

– Today is June 11th, 2004, and I am visiting a queen… a remarkable poet and radiant person Marina Gershenovich in her home. Right at the moment Marina is fixing a salad and cutting a tear-jerking bulb…

– Don’t cry!

– I won’t if you tell me what was good about London…

M. Gershenovich. I had a good company there, that’s for sure! I think that Borushko is an unrealized phychologist… Although, no, a realized one. If he managed to gather such a company: everyone is a pearl, everyone spirited! I can hear Bakhmutskaya’s voice even now, I can hear Gvinn’s intonations, see Siper’s back… They were so distinguished, so recognizable… Karina Bakhmutskaya Karina Bakhmutskaya came from Dusseldorf, Germany, just like me. Gvinn arrived from the US. His real name is Konstantin; Gvinn is his stage name. He is very brilliant, impressive, has a beautiful baritone: the ground was just shaking when he was screaming out his verses – he was presenting them as if they were rock music. Two more people besides Gvinn – Isaak Kroza and Michael Brif – were also from the States. Israel was represented by Michael Siper. Yuri Yurchinko came from France and won the second prize. There we unfortunately had a scandal. Yuri refused his silver crown. To tell you the truth, I was sure that that was just a stage trick… In turned out not ti: «There are no, – told me Yuri in a shaking voice in the dressing room, – second places in such affairs!»

V. Avtsen. I like more another position. When Yuri Nikulin was asked if he considered himself the first clown in the world, he answered: «The second one. There are too many firsts»…

M. Gershenovich. The third prize went to an amusing guy, Alex Ivanov from Ireland. Ivanov-Pushkin, because his contest poem – an authobiography in verses – ends in a funny yet symbolical way: «My mom’s maiden name is Pushkin». His performance was very striking. While listening to him, I thought, “This one for sure will get “Audience’s sympathy prize”. However the prize went to Michael Brif from New York. And Alex got the bronze and was happy!

Svetlana Dion, a poet from Spain, opened the tournament night. She used to be a ballerina in the past and now she takes care of her little son. Svetlana brought to London her poetry book that contains marvellous photographs. In fact, everyone had either books or compact discs with them. That means that the people who gathered there had been doing creative work for longer than one day or even one year.

V. Avtsen. Could you describe the contest itself?

M. Gershenovich. To the right from the auditorium the judges were sitting, to the left there was a bench. Each participant of the final was called, came out from behind the scenes and seated on the bench. Everyone was fully dressed. Women were wearing dresses, interesting suites, guys had elegant, smart appearance.

After the master of ceremonies presented each of us, we were to recite the contest poem, the topic for which was “What London needs, is too early for Moscow”.

Then there was the second round – everyone had to recite two or three poems of their choice.

V. Avtsen. How was the winner determined?

M. Gershenovich. A usual: the decisions were made by the aucience together with the judges, but what was counted, were not the votes but points… On the other hand, I don’t know all the details.

V. Avtsen. So, what did you feel when you heard, “MARINA GERSHENOVICH – first place”?

M. Gershenovich. If it wasn’t for the music, I would’ve come on stage and walked away calmly. Garry Voskanyan had written beautiful final music! I would compare it to Steve Wonder’s music. That means it’s not just a ceremonial march, but the music that is really exalted and at the same time… It creates an air-cushion between your throat and your heart. Very powerful arrangement! Garry was also the second master of ceremonies – he was leading the event together with Janna Borushko just wonderfully, and also he participated in it as a poet. The music was so loud and penetrating that I realized: if they now overemphasize the moment, a stingy tear will roll out of my eye… But it didn’t. Of course, I was nervous: footlights are footlights… But somehow you don’t realize the moment you receive the prize. They just call you, shake your hand and congratulate. Imagine it’s your birthday. It is pleasant…

V. Avtsen. And what was after?

M. Gershenovich. After that it was it. We went out to celebrate. We found a small patio outside the theater building, spent some time there. Then, we started getting familiar with the city. And when we felt a little rested and exchanged the books, we went to the small hotel. We were staying at the same place: Michael Brif, Michael Siper, and I. And the other people were visiting us. We were sitting in a terrace till late night. I liked that small hotel. On one hand, yes, it was a doss-house – tourists, young people, some bearded, not shaved, tattoed, shaggy-haired falk. But… I left for bed at three o’clock in the morning, and my colleagues stayed up propably till five. At eleven in the morning I came out to the terrace and saw some young man smoking, another tourist, just like him, shaving, and in the left corner, on the stone floor, there was a pile of money of an unclear currency and value, documents, driver’s license, two packs of cigarettes, a lighter… I realized then: that’s what our people had left behind… I collected it all, knocked on Siper’s door, and gave it to him. It turned out that everything was there except for Natasha Taranenkos’ (the previous year contestant) mobile phone. Natasha was upset: “They stole the phone, oh my God, they stole it!” I said, “Calm down, sooner or later it’ll come to the surface. Who on the earth might need it?”

The telephone did “come to the surface” some two or three hours later in the hotel’s main building: one of those shaggy-haired-bearded had found it and given to the portier. No one wants anything that belongs to somebody else… Wonderful. No unpleasant moments that could emerge somewhere in a Siberian hotel. Whereas at that place, if you find something, you bring it to the counter, the owner comes and asks about who it might belong to, and the money remains untouched where it was left… That’s why I cannot now say that it was just a doss-house. It was a small, very inexpensive, clean and cozy hotel.

And then – there was London! It drew my attention for all the rest of the days. There was a banquet in Borushko’s house, barbeque in the yard. Poetry was recited – some people standing on the stairs, some sitting on a bench. The people were joking, talking, taking pictures of each other and the entire gang.

We were taken to the center of London again by bus. We took a few pictures in Sherlock Holmes’ museum. The door-keeper addressed us, “Why just like this? Here are Holmes’ hat, Watson’s bowler. You are allowed to put these on!»

And how we were walking down Abbey road! Michael Siper staged it. There are four of you here, he said, just as needed. (And we resembled “Beetles” just as much as “Beetles” resembled us). So here I am, walking in advance, Alex is after me, and after him goes Gvinn. Everyone is so different, funny, and we were decreasing in hight… The shortest one, Michael Brif, dark-haired, with a tummy, was swinging his arms and could not keep step. Siper was diligently taking pictures of us. The traffic was very intense, and the drivers knew, of course, that there was a lot of eccentric tourists there, and everyone wanted to be photographed at that crossroads. Once they see a person with a photocamera and another one on the opposite side of the “zebra”, – all the cars stop right away… What confuses you is the left-sided traffic. While crossing a street, you look to the left, and they signal you from the right. On the other hand, the traffic in the center is very slow. I used to wonder how their buses run with an open footboard. But the buses move there with the same speed as a human walks. Or at most with the speed of an unskilful bicyclist. They run in single, one after another. You can jump onto or off it right while it’s in motion. Especially when you get closer to the heart of London – Piccadily… In the bus we found a friendly conductor, we photographed with him on a footboard, and the bus didn’t move until we had enough pictures taken…

V. Avtsen. Did you find literary life in London more interesting than it is in Germany?

M. Gershenovich. How can I compare – I don’t really know even ours… I know that the immigrants there are different… not better and not worse than ours – they are just different. Because they go there either already having a working contract or illegally, and in the latter case they have to struggle. There are only those two possibilities there. In Germany it all is different…

We are saying goodbye. Marina calls after me, “Yes, I almost forgot, please mention that I got to the tournament thank to Vladimir Avtsen: he literally pushed me out there! I myself would never get the idea to send a manuscript to the contest…».

ON A GOLDEN PORCH WERE SITTING…

Wild questions from the Wild Field

«You are a king: live alone…» Does this formula of the creative behavior apply to each poet or the elite only?

M. Gershenovich. If you look at a poet (writer, musician, dancer) as at a person who creates his own world, then it will be logically justified to attribute him rights and responsibilities of some proprietor. A creator, a king or some nomenclature individual – the common noun depends on the person’s scale, on the “created world’s” scale… While the “creator” can manage it without mediators and doesn’t need assistants, it is hard to imagine a king without a nation or a manager without subordinates. Again, the old saying – “the king is made by his surroundings” – is still relevant.

In the context of the contest the title of “King of poets” is just a referense, a temporary label in the obviously playful current moment. Remember the children’s counting rhyme: «On a golden porch were sitting a tzar, tzar’s son, king, king’s son, shoemaker, tailor, who are you going to be?…»

If the judges and audience didn’t participate in the contest, then Hamburg score would play the role of the finger of Fate. Several people who didn’t know each other and had written poetry, got together, recited to one another, played the game called «Hamburg score» – and the leader was decided. However the game “Pushkin in Britain” included a choir – the audience, and also representative assembly – people from Moscow and London…

Does that mean “Live alone”? The guild of poets is an interesting thing, it stimulates the creative process and also helps you survive; being friendly towards each other, you could publish a poetry collection together, and everyone seeks the way to the audience not only for himself…

But everyone has his own way, his own style, his own mythology of the world, his own personal legend (i.e. biography), and at any moment of creation one is as alone as at the moment of birth or death. Otherwise he or she won’t hear what could be heard by him or her only.

It is good if a person is surrounded by people with like minds and at the same time he remains himself and has his legitimate right for solitude – at any moment when he might need it. I think this is what we call creative independence. And people of like minds are not only friends or favorite authors, they are also the readers.

If there is such thing as poetic hierarchy, what do you think it is like? What are the criteria for poetic ranks? How can you tell apart a poet from a non-poet?

M. Gershenovich. You reminded me of the joke that arised in my home (back in Siberia). That joke now looks to me like the truth – and it’s been about 15 years….

I once was listening to kurtuaznye manyeristy’s discussion on the writers’ hierarchy in our home country. I don’t remember the exact ranks they were giving out, but I remember very well that they were military like: generalissimo – Gorky, marshal… perhaps Dostoyevsky, general – Bulgakov, for example, and the officers if I’m not mistaken, included Bitov, Evtushenko became a warrant officer… and so on). The bottom of line is that while listeting to that interesting discussion, I realized that I can define myself and my friends who were also writing without being published as guerrillas. Or rather solitary snipers.

How do you tell apart a poet from a non-poet? There are no precise instructions. Not each bird is a warbler. Not everyone who knows how to rhyme can become a poet. Not each poet is capable of creation what in the Russian language is defined with the word “poetry”.

Has anything changed in your being as a creator after the London coronation?

M. Gershenovich. The geography of my publications and performances has broadened (America, Spain)

02.07.2004 17:43
Andrey Lubensky Source:PRAVDA.ru

«PRAVDA.ru» told about London poetic tournament “Pushkin in Britain”. Our guest today is Marina Gershenovich, who won the honorary title of Queen of the Tournament.

«I was born in Novosibirsk, – Marina writes in the short autobiography for her first published book of poetry. – My parents and distant ancestors come from different places: Krasnoyarsk, Orenburg, Baku, Kelce (south-west of Poland), Georgia, Poland again… What did they do? God knows what! In our kin there have been illegitimate children, smugglers, horse thieves, sheikh’s bodyguards, counterfeiter, suicides, long-livers and just good relatives… I know for a fact that none of them has ever fought with anyone. Because of various reasons. And I’d like to adhere to this family tradition… There are few relatives left, no one sings or writes, almost all of them have higher education. except for me. That is because I didn’t happen to be a member of Komsomol (you could not be accepted into a college unless you had a Komsomol membership card). Later on, I had a lot of trouble with the society because of being “ignoramus”. I used to work wherever I had a chance to. Sometimes for the housing, sometimes for money, and sometimes just to have free time and not to die of starvation…»

In 1987 Marina became a laureat of Valery Grushin festival, published a poetry collection, was published in anthologies and magazines, and then left for Germany. Now Marina Gershenovich lives in Dusseldorf. “PRAVDA.ru” reporter Andrey Lubensky asked her a few questions.

– Marina, first of all let me congratulate you with the victory in the contest. What are your most striking memories of the London poetry competition?

– I already shared my impressions on the tournament’s web site. I’ll repeat myself: now, after weeks have passed since the contest, I can look back, comprehend the organizers’ position, evaluate the considerable amount of work they had done to arrange the tournament “Pushkin in Britain”, to sort out my feelings.

I had too little time: neither London nor people in London open to you right away. It’s like a box with a secret…. If I were more experienced in performing for the contest nominations, it would be easier for me to find my bearings on the general and specific rules and place the accents in my own program. My mind was not made up to win. The city, the Russian creative milieu in the capital city of England, contacts with the participants in the tournament, that’s what interested me. I hadn’t heard anything about practically any of them before and hadn’t known them by sight. The only exclusion, actually, was Michael Siper (Israel). I had seen his name on the list of laureats of a big festival in Russia.

I read two short poems (as the tournament’s regulations dictated). Neither of them had been published in my book “In Search of the Angel” (Saint-Petersburg, 2002, Vita-Nova Publishing house). Powerful and versatile works usually not as effective on the stage as short and dramatic ones. And besides, the tournament is not my personal recital where I could afford revealing myself as a poet and translator. A contest bears the mark of a performance: “Fruit Jelly Clarinet” – some image, if you wish, that is poetical jazz, stage action…

That’s why I didn’t go against the rules and recited a short poem from the Siberean cycle and the poem dedicated to the artists. I was reciting without thinking ahead whether or not I will get the prize, for Poetry has as little to do with the fight for the first place as Love has with the fight for a place under the sun .

Besides, the body of judges was wonderful^ Rimma Kazakova, Yuri Polyakov, Seva Novgorodtsev, Michael Popov… Everyone is a distinguished personality in literature, a name and a rather strict judge…

The contest lasted about two hours.

I listened with interest to the poetry by Yuri Yurchenko (poet, actor and playwright from France, 2nd place); beforehand I made myself familiar with the work of Michael Brif (New York, audience’s sympathy prize); I found poems by Karina Bakhmutskaya (Dusseldorf, Germany) on the Internet; as for the rest participants, I got to know them right on the day of the reading.

I enjoyed reading poems by Masha Gordon from New York (first prize in the tournament “Pushkin in Brinain in 2003) after I got back home… I’ve had so much work to do lately (both translational and physical), I travel and contact so much with talented people of my generation that the London first prize seems to me a confirmation of the rightly taken road rather than a casual gift of the heaven. I can only add that you never know what awaits you over a hill or by a crossroads: a strike of fate or an award…

– Russian poetry abroad (if this is an appropriate term) – what is its state today? Was is possible to come to any conclusions about that in London?

– I cannot judge all Russian speaking poets outside Russia. I’ve lived in Germany not long enough to know the names of all the active poets and writers even here. I’m not talking about those who began to write after they left their country, because of the surplus of spare time – that is a special case… In general, the state is the same as it’s been at all times: for every really talented person there is a mass of those who write-just-because. I think in Russia (taking into consideration the population) the situation is the same. there are many those who write and a little of those who are read, there is a certain number of the literary circles and N number of quazi-literary. Children who grow up in the families of emigrants, refugees and contract workers, assimilate with a different lingual medium and rarely show interest to Russian publications and even if they read or write something, they do it in the language of their milieu.

– You were not an unknown poet in Russia. Before London “crown” you managed to become a prize winner of Grushin festival, your works were published in magazines, you put out a collection of poetry. Why did you leave?

– You cannot consider being a laureat a sign of fame. Even if there is 100,000 people in audience, there are new names every year… Besides, at that time I had a different last name. If you look at the fact with a certain amount of irony, you could say that I put into practice the position of the japanese creators, people of natural gift. After obtaining success in one jenre, not they would only change a course of their creative work, but also their own name.

On a serious note…

Before I left, I managed to publish one small book of poetry, I had a few publications in Riga, Moscow, Saint-Petersburg. And very infrequent public performances that consumed a lot of energy and means, usually is was the family budget. Work people in Siberia don’t earn much, their earnings are minimal, and taking into consideration geographical and climatic circumstances of the homeland, a question of migration becomes an unsolvable problem.

During my last years in Novosibirsk I longed so badly for people, events and other cities and towns, as never before! That longing was like a grave illness that could only be healed by a surgical operation. That’s why, when I got an invitation to Germany, first – for an organizational meeting of “Sisters” magazine (Saint-Petersburg, 1993) and then for an international festival of music and poetry, I found out that I, as a family member of an ethnical German, am eligible for the immigration to Germany and decided to leave Siberia. My family consented to leave after a long period of hesitation.

I cannot say that I now I see people I love more frequently, or I have less problems than I used to, howeverwhat I did win from my fate is the freedom of movement from one place to another.

– The life of a Russian poet in Germany probably doesn’t resemble much the life in Russia? Is there some kind of a literary environment where one could be getting creative “oxigen”? О деньгах я I’m not even asking about the money – nowadays even in Russia there are very few people who live off of writing poetry.

– I am very glad that you are not asking about earning by literary work! Don’t believe those immigrants who states that they make a living by literature.

Especially in Germany. You can pump your chest as much as you wish and roll a carriage with your regalia in front of you. Neither requested and received grant from a fund or university will save you. I know several wonderful Slavonic and Germanic scholars, one very efficient translator, a member of the European Union of Writers. Their lives are hard. Many of them keep in touch with Moscow (those who speak Russian), by that providing for themselves a niche of a certain “accumulation fund” – a little here, a little there…

Also, don’t forget that I lived in Siberia. It is somewhat of a different region of the former USSR. I have no connections with any serious organization of Russia or Germany. This is not a complaint but just a statement of fact. I simply haven’t really started yet establishing contacts, searching the ways to get assistance in publishing a book of poetry translations from German or another one, which would become my third book – a book of my own poetry, or releasing a poetry collection by contemporary authors, whose poems I grew to love, but who haven’t published a line so far.

– How well contemporary Russian poetry is known in germany? What do they think of Russia and Russians in general?

– I’m not really the person to answer this kind of questions. It would be more appropriate for a canvass. I’ve got an impression that they don’t really know it and don’t show any interest almost at all… Or you mean native Germans? Slavonic scholars and students know as much as an average intellectual in Russia.

A certain list of names and works. Prose, contemporary drama, poetry; mainly “Silver Age”. Detective genre.

What they think of Russians? I’m repeating my question like a character of a cheap TV show. But I want to clarify: Russians in Russia? Russians in Moscow? Or Russian speaking people abroad? I assume that they think of Russians in Russia (on the average) in terms of the stereotypes. Just like most of the rest population of Earth. About Russians in Moscow as in a separate state they find out from the brief news broadcasts. By the way, they often mix up the country’s extreme north with Siberia, Ukrain with Russia…

What they think of the Russian speakers is probably what they think of their next door neighbors, or their coworkers, or their fellow passengers in public transportaion…

– And what do you think of Germany and Germans? Have your perceptions of German culture changed after several years of living “side by side”?

– Two years out of four I was working among Germans. Intellectual and other aspects of the people complied with their working positions. It was one of the halls of a private casino. Roulette, gambling machines, спекулятивные акции по розыгрышу крупных денежных сумм… I met some of the “inhabitants” on my own, practicing the language (I’m talking now about people out of the crowd, “random numbers”). There were very nice people among them with the sense of humor, easily approachable. Встречались и Also there were unbelievably evil, or just stupid ones, or misanthropes whom fate dealt short. Sweeping judgments about a nation are only possible when you sit in front of a TV and don’t show your nose out of your home.

I hadn’t have any formed opinions about Europeans in general and Germans in particular. I, like a child, don’t judge anything beforehand, because I DON’T KNOW. And if I ask and get an authoritive answer, I don’t trust a word, but I mark the information in my mind and verify it wherever possible. Often the information proves not to be true… However (and this is both funny and sad) I recently read Jerome K. Jerome’s novel that slipped away from me when I was a child: Three Men on the Bummel. Two centuries have past, and still how relevant the notes of a traveling bicyclist are!

– Tell me please what you work on these days, what are your plans for the future?

– To my horror, all my immediate plans (truly simple and easy to fullfil, at the first thought) started crashing after my visit to London. One action supersedes another, that’s clear…. But does some substitution happens even in relatively near plans?! -)))

All joking aside, I am really upset that it seems that one of my projects needs to be canceled. It’s been a year that I’ve been dreaming of publishing a book of my poetry as well of poetry of my friends. I’ve planned to publish it in a good place (Saint Petersburg), under the wing of musical-poetic alliance “AZiA”. Only two of us out of four planned are left. Everyone is well and sound, thank God, but only Mikhail Basin and I can invest money into this project. Not that it’s some big money, and “AZiA” supports our idea, and our friends are willing to assist in good design of the book and its promotion (advertisement). Nikolay Yakimov promised to be a coordinator of the project…

But the idea of the publication was this: four countries, four poets, who will introduce each of their participants in the project and each other to their own readers…

I’m not going to give up. I’m not losing hope to publish such a book.

Also, I’m pondering on an offer to visit New York. If those who are interested in my poetry succeed in attanging two or three readings for me in America, I’ll fly to New York with a program of a literary evening. Besides, my colleague (or rather, using Siberian lexicon, sidekick: -)) in translation “Aimee & Jaguar” by German journalist Erica Fischer lives in New York. Her name is Vita Barshteyn, she is translating the book into Russian for one of publishing houses in Kishinev, and I am translating poems written by one of the heroines of the book – Felice. The plot is not made up. What underlies there is a love story of the war years. It all happened in Germany. This love story is extraordinary, tragic, extended over many yeasr, because the other heroine of the book is still alive, and Erica Fischer wrote down the facts and personal story as she heard it from her… In the mid 90s a movie with the same name was made based on the book.

Besides that I try to get deeply into work of translation Gertrud Kolmar’ poetry. She is a strong and complex poet. And, as one of the best contemporary translators, Evgeny Witkowsky thinks, she is a poet of Marina Tsvetaeva’s level. Both energetically and in accuracy of the rhyme.

It is technically difficult to translate Kolmar into Russian. And incredibly intersting! There is a lot of great works of contemporary poets’translators as well as past years’ masters, on the website supervised by Evgeny Witkowsky: http://www.vekperevoda.com Several of Mascha Kaleko’s poems that I translated and wanted to show to my readers are also there. Most of my translations of Mascha Kaleko’s work are to be published yet.