Other
Shepherds
Nina
Kossman
Poems
with Translations from
Marina
Tsvetaeva
Poets
and Traitors Press
(
99 pages )
The very first poem, the very first translation by
Nina Kossman of a poem by Marina Tsvetaeva I should point out, holds me because
of the context of the poem in its historical setting, which is Russia during
the revolution of 1917. This is the context, and this, of course, is the way in
which you should perceive the poem. Here
is the first verse.
I
remember the first day, the infantile brutality;
The
languor and the divine dregs of a swallow.
The
carelessness of the hands, the heartlessness of the heart
Falling
like a stone – and like a hawk – onto my chest.
So, likewise, the historical context of my reading of
the poem is equally as important, in order to reclassify the original context
above, and the current historical context of my reading is six months into a
global pandemic, that of Covid 19 at the end of August, 2020. My daughter went
to school today, despite the fact that the Minister of Health announced that
there will more than likely be a return to Lockdown, school children across
Europe have already returned to school, and spikes of new cases have appeared
only just this same week. I, myself, received an email from my supervisor at
work, informing me that I too would be returning to work, in a couple of weeks.
I am a teacher and have been teaching online, rather happily, for the last
couple of months. So, now you, the reader, whatever your historic
context may be, are aware of the background informing the following review.
‘infantile brutality’ is the first collocation that
springs to mind- remember that I am reading this poem/translation while reports
are coming in on a daily basis of police brutality in the USA with the killing
of George Floyd and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, but also after
the prolonged rioting in Paris with the gilet jaune or yellow jackets
which were going on throughout 2019, and also current tensions which are
escalating in the South China Seas, between the USA, Japan, Taiwan and
Australia on the one hand and China on the other, while in the Mediterranean
Turkey and Greece would appear to be also at loggerheads, all of which is
playing out against a further backdrop of governmental corruption in both the
UK and the Republic of Ireland where governmental ministers in both countries
have been seen to be callously disregarding their own Covid guidelines
concerning travelling and quarantine restrictions, so that the unease and
scepticism among the public in both islands is daily mounting. ‘the
carelessness of the hands, the heartlessness of the heart Falling like a stone
– and like a hawk – onto my chest.’
This is the poetry of one who has suffered, and who
understands what it means to suffer. The Russian poet Marina Tsvetaeva’s life reads like a dramatic historical movie-
her daughter was to die soon after she wrote the lines above in the famine
which followed the events which she is describing, namely civil war, and who
would eventually hang herself in 1941 after her husband was killed, he was accused of
espionage, but not after she had had numerous affairs, including one with Osip
Mandelstam, from this experience she wrote a collection Milestones; spent
13 years living in Paris, she studied at the Sorbonne; contracted TB, and travelled
literally all over both Western and Eastern Europe. Like Rimbaud, Tsvetaeva had
giant appetites. Though, unlike the Frenchman, she was born into a world of
privilege; her father was a Professor of fine art while her mother was a
concert pianist.
And
now – trembling from heart and pity, what’s left
Is
this: to howl like a wolf, this: to fall at your feet,
To
lower my eyes, knowing the penalty of pleasure –
A
convict’s passion and cruel love.
As well as having had an affair with Mandelsam, around
the same period of the composition of this poem Tsvetaeva also had a very deep
and long- lasting affair with the poet Sophia Parnook. So, outside the greater
narrative of the Russian revolution, which certainly frames the poem, there is
also the microcosm of the poet’s own power plays with trysts with lovers. The ‘penalty
of pleasure – A convict’s passion and cruel love.’
The historical context informs the work, as it gives
to the voice an authority that is implicit in the lines, her personal
experience imbues the words and phrases with the particular forensics of the
empiricist’s science, to which the reader trusts implicitly. It is not
the explicit woe is me that is all too familiar to hear these days by so
-called spoken word poets, those apologists for mediocrity and tedium. Rather,
this is the quiet, studied nuance of the sheer barbarism of all so called ‘civilised’
encounters, once the mask of appearance has been pulled down.
Her translator, the poet Nina Kossman, has a similar tragic
background, in terms of her family; the majority of her father’s, a Russian Jew
born in Moscow, were exterminated by the Nazis during the second world war in
extermination camps. Kossman herself grew up in New York and is a vibrant
presence in the Russian expat community organising online poetry readings in
Russian, while inviting foreigners like me to participate. I find her whole
engagement with the poet Tsvetaeva a fascinating one, as like Nina, I too am
prone to translation. It is an integral part of multi-lingual poets who inhabit
multiple worlds outside of their maternal tongue. Kossman, in fact, describes
in the introduction to Other Shepherds her own very complex relationship
with the Russian language as she grew up in various parts of the USA as a
child.
You,
who are lost,
who
were you then,
when
time stood still
like
a hollow rock,
where
can you find it,
in
what far flung night?
You
said it was yours,
time
was your god, you said,
or
did you want to say
that
you were its servant?
But
now it has abandoned you –
you
are a withered king
on
a solitary throne
“She
is my love, my bride my very own…”
Ah,
but where is she now,
your
queen, your soul?
in
the ground she lies,
in
a wooden coffin,
under
a heavy stone.
This is Kossman’s reply to Tsvetaeva’s opening poem,
the translation given at the start of this review, and such is the structure of
the book Other Shepherds which I must say I like very much, this idea where
both the poet and the translator gather together in unison to enter into an
even greater communion with the subject of the book. The poem above, her
response, is so good too. I love the way she echoes the ‘hollow rock’ at the
beginning with the ‘heavy stone’ at the close of the poem. It is wonderfully crafted
and conceived as it would echo the further echo of the response of the poem to
her own translation of the original. All translations being merely readings, or
at least the residual trace of a particular reading, by the translator poet at
a particular place in time. How far will they stand up to the further scrutiny
of time is anyone’s guess, but I think that we can be pretty sure from reading
the above poem, the response, that it will stand the test of time, as time and
its rather ephemeral nature is the very subject of it, which is a timeless one
in poetry, at least. Real poetry, at least, I feel almost obliged to add. Timeless
poetry which is concerned with the timeless themes of both women and men, such
as – mortality!
And indeed, how long I have waited to read a good poem
on the subject of mortality!
From
your arrogant Poland
You
brought me flattering words,
And
a sable hat,
And
your hand with long fingers,
And
bows, and endearments,
And
a princely coat-of arms with a crown.
-
But I brought you
Two
silver wings.
M. T. (1917)
Words
for wings, less for more,
As
sea is for mope[1],
red
for white
sweet
for dry,
petals
for a flower,
a
flower as a gift:
something
that wilts
for
something that lasts,
something
that passes
for
something that stays…
Repeat:
Mirror for memory-
I
shan’t accept this gift.
N.K
Here is the second offering, I print them as
they are upon the page. The same theme is treated, yet in a totally different way.
The mood alters, so rapidly. But, time passing, time passing. And, again, it is
this very human identification process which the poet translator Kossman brings
to this whole enterprise that I find fascinating. Kossman engages with Tsvetaeva
in the translation which reads so natural, she is addressing her husband in
this poem, if I am not mistaken, who was of noble Polish descent. The stark
contrast in gifts, the worldly heaviness of the masculine, contrasted so beautifully
with the natural élan of the feminine. And how Kossman replies, ‘Words
for wings, less for more,’ always being sold short. ‘as sea is for mope’ the
crime of translation. Russian is a very beautiful language, I have heard
Kossman reading in Russian with its wonderful musicality – the cadence and
rhymes which English cannot come close to. By the way, the publisher which published the book is called Poets and Traitors Press which specialises in
translation, rather funnily. It is a beautifully produced book too, in terms of
material for the cover, typeface and the paper that is used. ‘something that
wilts for something that lasts’, Kossman goes on ‘something that passes for
something that stays… Repeat: mirror for memory – I shan’t accept this gift.’
The closing lines leave me puzzled. Which is it she means, the general bullshit
of men? or the superficial image of one’s face projected onto a two dimensional
surface which is reflected back to one in place of the things and events one
actually remembers? For the life of me, I have no idea! But then, Kossman’s
poems, like Tsvetaeva’s were meant to be read slowly… piecemeal… savoured, over
the passage of time. If such an exercise is what you look for in a collection
of poems – translations, look no further.
Peter O'Neill - August 2020
https://www.poets-traitors.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment