"mama is reading a history of russian death …"

Abstract

"mama is reading a history of russian death …" Konstantin Shavlovsky (bio) Translation from the Russian mama is reading a history of russian deathI'm reading Paul B. Preciadowe're both preparing to transition at which stage do we turn the page mama it's not black and whitewe're the bad guys, we're foolsit's the phantoms in the kitchencircling around your foot there goes granny with her hornshere comes that faceless auntlittle people, common folkread that tale to the end breathe into the balmy windsave it for a rainy dayone white night a dirty phantomwith the lilacs had his way not at all white, death burns therenot at all bare, life stands there I do not recognize this fatal farethis taste of Pushkin in my mouth [End Page 47] Editorial note: Turn to page 58 to read the translator's biographies. Konstantin Shavlovsky Konstantin Shavlovsky is a poet, cinema critic, publisher, curator, and the founder/executive manager of the Saint Petersburg bookstore Word Order. He has worked as an editor for Seance magazine, published extensively on Russian cinema, and curated multiple interdisciplinary cinema projects. He is the author of two books of poetry and resides in Tbilisi, Georgia. Polina Barskova Polina Barskova is a poet and scholar who teaches Russian literature at the University of California, Berkeley. She is author of twelve collections of poetry and two books of prose in Russian as well as of the monograph Besieged Leningrad: Aesthetic Responses to Urban Disaster (2017). Her recent creative nonfiction collection, Living Pictures (2022), was awarded the Andrei Bely Prize. Her collections of poetry in English translation include This Lamentable City, The Zoo in Winter, Relocations, and, most recently, Air Raid. D. Brian Kim D. Brian Kim is a scholar of nineteenth-century Russian literature and the theory and practice of literary translation and cultural exchange. He teaches at the University of Pennsylvania. Eugene Ostashevsky Eugene Ostashevsky is the author, most recently, of The Feeling Sonnets (2022). As a translator of experimental literature in Russian, he has worked on futurism, the OBERIU group, and contemporary poetry, as well as Lucky Breaks, by Yevgenia Belorusets (2022). Bela Shayevich Bela Shayevich is a Soviet-American writer and translator. Elaine Wilson Elaine Wilson is a writer, literary translator, language instructor, and PhD candidate in the Department of Slavic Languages at Columbia University. She lives in New York City. Copyright © 2023 World Literature Today and the Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma