Russian Poetry and Elegy, AATSEEL 2011

[Alex Shafarenko]

Dear Molly,

With reference to the above, I would like to draw your attention to a new
book of Russian poetry in translation: 

"Salt Crystals on an Axe",
http://www.ancientpurple.com/SCoaA.html

published by Ancient Purple last year and available from all major
distributors, as it contains three outstanding elegiac pieces of 20th
century Russian poetry, Evgeny Rein's "Caption to a Rent Portrait" and
"Darkling Glitter", and Arseny Tarkovsky's peerless "First Trysts", the last
one known to the Western audience from son Andrei Tarkovsky's 
cult movie "The Mirror", where father Arseny recites the poem in a voice-over
(and where the translation given in subtitles is mind-bogglingly inadequate).

As the book contains only short poems, and since Russian poetry seems
suffused  with elegy in those short forms, you will also find many minor
elegies of subtle beauty there, among which are works by Annensky,
Akhmatova, Kushner and Mezhirov,
to name but a few. Of course, whoever speaks on the topic should pay special
attention to Evgeny Rein, whom Joseph Brodsky, a friend and admirer of his,
once called an "elegiac urbanist", obviously for the poet's special
propensity for the darker colour in his verse.

Good luck with the conference,

Prof Alex Shafarenko
University of Hertfordshire, UK

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