Anzhelina Polonskaya
translated from the Russian by Andrew Wachtel
Still Life with Potato Field
Tell me, why is there war
if not to leave buckles in lumps of clay?
The potato field sleeps. At night you can’t guess
who’ll be lying down in the blue leaves by morning.
A cold year. The train cars smell
of rubber boots, bodies, and exhalation.
A distant port wanders with ships
and in the crowd it’s easy to pass as a refugee.
Time marches on. The clock face strides
with metal arrows, like a crane in the lagoon.
The bazaars are filled with traders,
while the moon’s saber edge slashes the cigarette smoke.
The house is like a white fish diving into the mist.
It’s been a long time since there was light in the window.
At the edge of the field a female figure freezes,
hiding potatoes in the folds of her skirt.
In the leaden air, where there’s no place for lungs,
you hear only the clang of a gate’s hasp.
For an instant the face looks out into the night,
then hides its grief behind sticky fingers.
Greek Philosophy
Ianis Leonis,
the owner of a Greek taverna
told me two things:
“It’s bad that you don’t believe in God”
and
“the most beautiful woman in the world is the sea.”
And he was completely correct.
But is it really possible to find God like this,
endlessly desiring another woman
especially when you see her
only on the saints days and on Sundays?
Ianis, Ianis,
I’m afraid that you’ll have to take the fall
when you’re called as my witness
on Judgment Day.
Love Story
…I remained standing, my back to the ocean. The
vanishing city looked like an open vein;
Squawking gulls swallowed fog,
their open beaks crying, ‘write a novella about us!”
Seagulls, like the scratch of a hunter’s damp match;
A shepherd brought me love on a platter—what could I do with it? Those
gulls, like eyebrows preserving duplicity,
are dying..
But I never wrote a novella.
Ad Lib
You take me for a woman
but I am only a bush—a wild bush
growing by the road.
Your snows are deceptive, my dear--
I can’t shake them from my branches, can’t warm up.
The night whispers into my ear about you.
About you.
The palms of those who pass by here
are filled with ripe berries.
Those palms do not remember the bush.
“There’s no fortress that can’t be stormed,”
and if you don’t believe me—ask the soldier
by the wall. By the wall.
Sunday
Sunday market. Stalls set out like crumpled tinfoil, pig’s
heads blinded by sudden death
groan in search of acorns, god observes. My
pockets are empty.
I lose you amidst the motley shop windows, the salesmen’s aprons from
raspberry to russet, flecked like the cheeks of an apple;
A melon’s flesh like the body of a starfish,
counter-weight anchors tossed on the scales.
A bell, torn by the ear from the distance (where are you? Where is your hand?).
I’m stunned by the hypocritical foreheads, submissive to the church on
Sunday.
Perhaps it’s my nerves, perhaps the bare poplars like in Dachau…. And by
the roadside, spilled from a shopping bag,
some potatoes are strewn about.
__________
Anzhelina Polonskaya was born in Malakhovka, a small town near Moscow. Since 1998, she has been a member of the Moscow Union of Writers and in 2003, Polonskaya became a member of the Russian PEN-centre. In 2004 an English version of her book, entitled "A Voice," appeared in the acclaimed “Writings from an Unbound Europe” series at Northwestern University Press. This book was shortlisted for the 2005 Corneliu M Popescu Prize for European Poetry in Translation. Polonskaya has published translations in many of the leading world poetry journals, including World Literature Today, Descant, Modern Poetry in Translation, Poetry Review UK, The Ameircan Poetry Review, and International Poetry Review, Boulevar , The Iowa Review, The Massachusetts Review, Prairie Schooner, Barrow Street, The Journal, Poetry Daily, AGNI, etc. In October 2011 the “Oratorio-Requiem” Kursk, whose libretto consists of ten of Polonskaya’s poems had debut at the Melbourne Arts Festival. « Paul Klee’s Boat» a bilingual edition of her latest poems has just been published by Zephyr Press. Anzhelina Polonskaya has been awarded a Rockefeller Fellowship and a Marguerite and Lamar Smith Fellowship for Writers at the Columbus State university in Georgia for 2013. Polonskaya’s work has also been translated into Dutch, Slovenian, Latvian, Spanish and other languages . Polonskaya continúes to live and work in Malakhovka, where she is preparing a new volume of poetry for publication.
Andrew Wachtel is president of the American University of Central Asia in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Previously he was dean of the Graduate School at Northwestern University. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and an active translator from multiple Slavic languages.
translated from the Russian by Andrew Wachtel
Still Life with Potato Field
Tell me, why is there war
if not to leave buckles in lumps of clay?
The potato field sleeps. At night you can’t guess
who’ll be lying down in the blue leaves by morning.
A cold year. The train cars smell
of rubber boots, bodies, and exhalation.
A distant port wanders with ships
and in the crowd it’s easy to pass as a refugee.
Time marches on. The clock face strides
with metal arrows, like a crane in the lagoon.
The bazaars are filled with traders,
while the moon’s saber edge slashes the cigarette smoke.
The house is like a white fish diving into the mist.
It’s been a long time since there was light in the window.
At the edge of the field a female figure freezes,
hiding potatoes in the folds of her skirt.
In the leaden air, where there’s no place for lungs,
you hear only the clang of a gate’s hasp.
For an instant the face looks out into the night,
then hides its grief behind sticky fingers.
Greek Philosophy
Ianis Leonis,
the owner of a Greek taverna
told me two things:
“It’s bad that you don’t believe in God”
and
“the most beautiful woman in the world is the sea.”
And he was completely correct.
But is it really possible to find God like this,
endlessly desiring another woman
especially when you see her
only on the saints days and on Sundays?
Ianis, Ianis,
I’m afraid that you’ll have to take the fall
when you’re called as my witness
on Judgment Day.
Love Story
…I remained standing, my back to the ocean. The
vanishing city looked like an open vein;
Squawking gulls swallowed fog,
their open beaks crying, ‘write a novella about us!”
Seagulls, like the scratch of a hunter’s damp match;
A shepherd brought me love on a platter—what could I do with it? Those
gulls, like eyebrows preserving duplicity,
are dying..
But I never wrote a novella.
Ad Lib
You take me for a woman
but I am only a bush—a wild bush
growing by the road.
Your snows are deceptive, my dear--
I can’t shake them from my branches, can’t warm up.
The night whispers into my ear about you.
About you.
The palms of those who pass by here
are filled with ripe berries.
Those palms do not remember the bush.
“There’s no fortress that can’t be stormed,”
and if you don’t believe me—ask the soldier
by the wall. By the wall.
Sunday
Sunday market. Stalls set out like crumpled tinfoil, pig’s
heads blinded by sudden death
groan in search of acorns, god observes. My
pockets are empty.
I lose you amidst the motley shop windows, the salesmen’s aprons from
raspberry to russet, flecked like the cheeks of an apple;
A melon’s flesh like the body of a starfish,
counter-weight anchors tossed on the scales.
A bell, torn by the ear from the distance (where are you? Where is your hand?).
I’m stunned by the hypocritical foreheads, submissive to the church on
Sunday.
Perhaps it’s my nerves, perhaps the bare poplars like in Dachau…. And by
the roadside, spilled from a shopping bag,
some potatoes are strewn about.
__________
Anzhelina Polonskaya was born in Malakhovka, a small town near Moscow. Since 1998, she has been a member of the Moscow Union of Writers and in 2003, Polonskaya became a member of the Russian PEN-centre. In 2004 an English version of her book, entitled "A Voice," appeared in the acclaimed “Writings from an Unbound Europe” series at Northwestern University Press. This book was shortlisted for the 2005 Corneliu M Popescu Prize for European Poetry in Translation. Polonskaya has published translations in many of the leading world poetry journals, including World Literature Today, Descant, Modern Poetry in Translation, Poetry Review UK, The Ameircan Poetry Review, and International Poetry Review, Boulevar , The Iowa Review, The Massachusetts Review, Prairie Schooner, Barrow Street, The Journal, Poetry Daily, AGNI, etc. In October 2011 the “Oratorio-Requiem” Kursk, whose libretto consists of ten of Polonskaya’s poems had debut at the Melbourne Arts Festival. « Paul Klee’s Boat» a bilingual edition of her latest poems has just been published by Zephyr Press. Anzhelina Polonskaya has been awarded a Rockefeller Fellowship and a Marguerite and Lamar Smith Fellowship for Writers at the Columbus State university in Georgia for 2013. Polonskaya’s work has also been translated into Dutch, Slovenian, Latvian, Spanish and other languages . Polonskaya continúes to live and work in Malakhovka, where she is preparing a new volume of poetry for publication.
Andrew Wachtel is president of the American University of Central Asia in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Previously he was dean of the Graduate School at Northwestern University. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and an active translator from multiple Slavic languages.