Polina Barskova

I would imagine these poems to be a bit more dazzling in Barskova's native Russian. Overall, this is an enjoyable quick read as the book contains no truly perplexing or overwhelming content. There are some lyrical lines within these poems which provide musicality and slight eroticism which is ultimately what kept me reading, however. Barskova provides a few moments for readers to meditate upon loss or love such as the lines, "I will try to live on earth without you./ I will try to live on earth without you./ I will become any object,/ I don't care what --" and so one does wonder just how much weight is lost in translation. Worth reading if you've stumbled upon this chapbook somehow and have some spare time, especially if you'd like to entertain yourself with the thought of licking some dead bodies and resting near the grave of Nabokov's mother.… (altro)

This very lean selection of poems in translation by the contemporary Russian poet Polina Barskova was brought to my attention when its editor, Ilya Kaminsky, was giving a reading in my area and he included a poem from this volume in amongst his own. I had thoroughly enjoyed his collection, so I thought I'd have a go at his translations of Barskova, who I hadn't heard of previously. After, I must admit, a rather quick read through, I am neither disappointed nor amazed by these pieces. The tone plays with historicity and eroticism with a fine and subtle hand, no doubt, and some of the images are downright striking. I was struck by how "each disembodied bedroom curtain thickens with evening" or the rather unique description of angels as "tall sexless bitches". I can see how Barskova is a modernized descendant of Akhmatova. That said, the poems did not grab me in their entirety, and I wonder if that is attributable to Barskova's own style or to Kaminsky's "loose" translations. As Barskova herself approved these translations, I reckon it is a little of both.… (altro)