Trinity Journal of Literary TranslationCreative Writing Supplement

Vol. IMay 2015

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Global Relations OfficeOifig na GaeilgeSchool of EnglishThe Trinity Foundation

Sponsors and Partners

Executive Board

Editor in Chief | Áine Josephine TyrrellAcademic Journal Editor | Kerstina Mortensen

Creative Writing Editor | Maria Romanova HynesLayout and Design Editor | Alice Wilson

Publications Editor | Lola BoormanCommunications Editor | Sacha Shipway

Treasurer | Rebecca FeelyFaculty Advisor | Dr. Peter Arnds

Front Cover Illustration by Harriet BruceBack Cover Illustration by Alice Wilson

editorials

This year marks a pivotal moment in the direction of T-JoLT, and the present Creative Writing Supplement you are holding in your hands is a testimony to that. T-JoLT (thanks to Aine) has become home not only to literary translation but also to original writing by students and established authors whose work might or might not be of English origin. To me, it is a great sign of growing awareness of and respect for contemporary world literature.I would like to express my sincere gratitude to all those who submitted their prose and poetry to T-JoLT this year and to all the translators and language editors who gave life to those submissions in another language, which is an act of marvellous creation indeed! I have also been fortunate to write a review on the recent publication of In Praise of Poetry, a volume of collected poetry and prose by the celebrated Russian contemporary poet Olga Sedakova. I thank her and her publisher, Open Letter, for their support and kind permission to feature poems from the book in this issue. Finally, I would like to thank Lola Boorman and Alice Wilson who invited me to be a part of the T-JoLT team and who, as well as the other members of the editorial board, have shared with me a deeply rewarding and valuable experience which I shall cherish throughout my life. Maria Romanova Hynes Editor of the Creative Writing Supplement

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This has been a crucial year for T-JoLT as, not only have we developed the connections and increased the prominence of the academic journal, but we also founded this Creative Writing Supplement. The idea behind this addition to the original academic issue was to offer Trinity College’s students, in particular its international and bilingual students, a chance to become involved in the literary scene of both the college and of Dublin at large. Often a lack of confidence or a perceived lack of experience writing in English (if it not one’s first language) can become barrier to one’s full immersion in the wealth of art and literature that is to be found in this city. Second, the supplement was created to bring original creative writing from outside of Ireland into the TCD and Irish public’s consciousness. Áine Josephine Tyrrell Editor in Chief

poetry

prose

art

SavelloRonan Murphy | Áine Tyrrell

Hoar frost in Dunfermaline Sinead Fagan | Huiyi Bao

Bulb and Field Susanna Galbraith | Marion Peres

Kassiopi, GreeceSinead Fagan | Fiona Lally

The last song of Unnar Heiðrú-nar Maria Romanova Hynes |

Ester Bíbí Ásgeirsdóttir and Ásgeir Árnason

For Francis Under FlowersNiall McCabe | Barry Ó Séanáin

My KingdomHitomi Nakamura | Jason Morgan

Review of Olga SedakovaMaria Romanova Hynes

Creation Myth Caroline Norris | Maria Romanova HynesThe Call Robert Stephen Hopkins | Anastasia Gilfanova and Liath Gleeson

non-fiction

Susanna GalbraithMaria Romanova Hynes

Alice WilsonLenny BuckleyLenny Buckley

Harriet BruceAlice Wilson

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Username: orient. Password: sphere13as Johnny Dolmen ticks between a flickerof thumbs and eyelids at the screenand Post-Redemption Blues in the nearest speakerOver there Wedding or what? The East is everywherehe mouths along ‘the moos and meowsof Schrödinger’s Cat and Hegel’s Cows’Da, wo man keines findt. A zero summer

‘O Click thy sorrows, Scion o’ the bleepsAnd drag thy blotted woes to trash, dear Scion...’She sniffs the clotted air and leapsKomische Leute, sie schreien. Lass sie schreienHer violin sinews---Bosch or Bruegel style---were splayed across the brazen cars(two yellow Mazda GTRs)He flicks the pics and cracks a bracket smile

Now Psychopomp celebrity Polly Optic(with the Mona Lisa tash and Disré specs)will hike to Pisces, shinny the eclipticand pluck blue apples in the veritable XDon Pipistrello, upside down in the dark, recites the Desiderridato a Congo wrapped in Florida---‘You’ll miss the meaning, but never miss the mark’

They curl like Beckett’s fingers, the orange trees,they sparkle over Arcturus, on the wordthat stirred a voice below the sea’s,a trickle in the quickening snows. Beyond absurd---to whinny and shush yourself toward the silenceThese stilt-jack Jonahs in the crawsof Babelfish and Jabberjawswho sign to the signless dawn---what shores what islands

Savello Ronan Murphy

Italian

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Nome Utente: oriente. Password: sfera13 mentre Johnny Dolmen tichetta tra un sfarfallio di pollici e di palpebre sullo schermo e Post-Redemption Blues dall’altoparlante piu vicino Laggiu nozze o cosa? L’Oriente e dappertutto Lui biascica: i muggiti ed i miagoli del gatto di Schrodinger e le mucche di Hegel Da, wo man keines findt. Un estate di zero

‘O clicca i suoi dolori, il rampollo dei bip, e trascina al cestino le sue tristezze tamponate, carrissimo rampollo’lei fiuta l’aria coagolata e balza Komische Leute, sie schreien. Lass sie schreien I suoi contorni di violino (in stile Bosch o Breugel) Erano spalancati sui carri di ottone(due gialli Mazda GTR) Lui sfoglia le foto e schizza un sorriso di parentesi

Ora la VIP degli psicopompi, Polly Optic (con i baffi della Gioconda e gli occhiali della Disre) salira al segno dei Pesci, si arrampichera sull’eclittica e cogliera le mele azzurre nella veritabile X Don Murcielago, a testa in giu al buio, recita la Desiderrida ad un Congo avvolto in Florida... ‘Ti eludera il senso, ma mai il bersaglio...’

Si arricciano come le dita di Beckett, gli alberi d’arancio, scintillano sopr’Arturo, sulla parola che ha risvegliato una voce sottomarina,un rivolo nelle nevi solleciti. Oltre l’assurdo... a nitrirsi e a zittirsi verso il silenzio... Questi Giona, fabbri di trampoli, nei gozzi dei Babelfish e dei Jabberjaw, che fanno cenno all’alba senza segno: che spiagge che isole

Savello trans. Áine Tyrrell and Ronan Murphy

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Hoar frost in Dunfermline:Sinéad Fagan

Some hardy womendo not feel the cold-they don’t feel the shiver of being ex-posed.To others the coldis a reminder tobe freaked by deathin its many shapes

Chinese

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photos by Susanna Galbraith

trans. by Huiyi Bao

某些强壮的女人感觉不到寒冷——她们感觉不到暴露带来的颤栗。对另一些女人寒冷是一种提醒：被死亡震慑以它的多种身姿多种形态。

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Creation Myth (Cosmogony) of the D’orobo People from the Northern Highlands of Kenya

Caroline Norris

In the beginning there was Kirinyaga. He was the all and the everything, there was none but Him.

Yet He grew lonely.

So Kirinyaga fashioned clay, He took it and moulded it, working the clay into fig-ures. He baked the clay in the fire of the suns, and He breathed life into it. Then Kirinyaga clapped His hands and created a world, a large world with mountains, hills, savannas and rivers, filled with every kind of life. He built a rope down from the Heavens to Earth and He climbed down with the living clay and placed them in the savanna, and the clay was The People.

Kirinyaga gave these People a land, rich with health and good food to eat. He gave them cattle; cows and bulls to provide meat and strength. He named them Ma’asai, and said all the savanna they looked upon was theirs to claim. The Peo-

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Russian

Миф племени Доробо о сотворении мира (космогония), северное высокогорье Кении, Восточная Африкаtrans. Maria Romanova Hynes

В начале был Кириньяга. И Он был всё, и Он был вся, и не было ничего, кроме Него.

Но стало Ему одиноко.

И взял Кириньяга глину, и придал Он ей форму, и вылепил из неё фигурки. И выжег Он глину в огне солнц, и вдохнул Он жизнь в неё. Затем Кириньяга ударил в ладоши и сотворил мир - огромный мир с горами и холмами, саваннами и реками, наполненный всякими воплощениями жизни. Он свил Верёвку от Небес до Земли и спустился с живой глиной, чтобы поместить её в саванне. И глина была Народом. Кириньяга наделил этот Народ землёй, почвой благодатной, и хорошей пищей. Он дал людям скот, коров и быков, чтобы было у них мясо, и чтобы была у них сила. Он именовал их Массаи и сказал, что вся саванна, которую они могли объять взором, принадлежала им. Народ этот плодился и размножался, и Кириньяга улыбался, глядя на людей. Он наблюдал за их жизнями с интересом и радостью. Воинственные и

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ple spread and multiplied, and Kirinyaga smiled on them. He watched their lives with interest and delight. The Ma’asai were warlike and proud, strong tall men who chased the lion, hunted the gazelle and took good care of their herds of cattle.

Yet Kirinyaga grew restless and wished a new kind of people; He took the clay as before, baked it, and breathed life into a new tribe. He climbed down the Rope, and gave to them the rich hills and valleys and rivers, desiring them to be farm-ers; not to hunt and kill, but to till and reap the goodness of the Earth. He called these people The Kikuyu. Then Kirinyaga watched, and was satisfied.

But after a time Kirinyaga noticed there was still unmoulded clay, and not want-ing to be wasteful he took what was left of the clay and fashioned another kind of people. These were smaller and more compact figures. Kirinyaga baked the clay in the fires of the sun, but while watching the hunt of the Ma’asai of a lion, he baked the clay too long, and the figures were made much darker than before. Yet Kirinyaga saw they were still good, and He breathed life into them, and sent them down the Rope to Earth.

But then suddenly, the lion who was being hunted by the Ma’asai ran up to the rope and tried to scramble up it into Heaven, to fly away from his pursuers. Yet lions cannot climb, even the Acacia tree they cannot climb, although they have sharp claws. The lion fell back to Earth, but the lion’s sharp claws caught the rope and tore right through it, so most of the rope fell to Earth and landed with the lion on top of a Ma’asai warrior, killing him . All this the new tribe saw, as they were patiently waiting by the rope for Kirinyaga to tell them their purpose on Earth. But Kirinyaga could not climb down where there was no rope anymore.

The Ma’asai were very angry when they ran up to their fallen warrior, and there was great howls of rage and sorrow. The Ma’asai turned and saw the new tribe, they saw that the new tribe looked different, and they started blaming these new peoples for what had happened. The Ma’asai’s anger was very loud, and the new tribe turned their eyes up to the Heavens, asking Kirinyaga for help.

But He did not come down. There was a silence from above. This the Ma’asai saw as well, and they said to the new tribe,

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гордые, сильные и высокие Массаи могли угнаться за львом и охотились на газель, бережно ухаживали за своими стадами.

И всё же Кириньяге стало беспокойно, и возжелал Он новый род людей; и взял Он глину как и прежде, обжог её и вдохнул жизнь в новое племя. Он спустился вниз по Верёвке и отделил новым людям плодородные холмы, долины и реки, желая, чтобы они были земледельцами, чтобы они не охотились и убивали, а возделывали почву и пожинали блага её. Он именовал людей этих Кикую. И воззрел Он на тех, кого сотворил, и был удовлетворён.

Но спустя некоторое время Кириньяга заметил, что у Него все ещё оставалась нетронутая глина, и, чтобы не быть расточительным, Он взял то, что у него сохранилось, и вылепил иной род людей; и фигурки эти были меньше прочих. Кириньяга стал выжигать глину в огне солнца. Но пока Он наблюдал за тем, как Массаи охотились на льва, Он передержал глину в огне, и фигурки получились гораздо темнее, чем раньше. И всё же Кириньяга увидел, что они были и так хороши, и вдохнул в них жизнь, и отослал их вниз по Верёвке на Землю.

Но неожиданно тот лев, на кого Массаи вели охоту, подбежал к Верёвке и стал взбираться по ней к Небесам, чтобы спастись от своих преследователей. Вот только львы не умеют взбираться ввысь, даже по дереву акации, хотя у них и есть острые когти - и этот лев тоже упал на земь. Но, вцепившись своими острыми когтями в Верёвку, он прорвал её насквозь так, что большая часть её упала на Землю вместе со львом, который приземлился на воина Массаи и убил его.

Всё это племя узрело, пока новые люди терпеливо ждали, стоя у Верёвки, когда Кириньяга скажет им каково их предназначение на Земле. Но Кириньяга не мог спуститься вслед за ними, так как не было больше Вёревки от Небес до Земли.Массаев объяла страшная злость, когда они подбежали к своему павшему воину; и испустили они страстные яростные стоны, и горько скорбели. Массаи развернулись и увидели новое племя; и увидели они, что люди эти были отличны от них, и возложили они на них вину за то, что случилось. Ярость Массаев была так велика, что новое племя возвело очи свои к Небесам, обращаясь к Кириньяге за помощью.Но Он не спустился. Небеса отозвались тишиною.

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“Now you see what you have done! Even Kirinyaga has now abandoned us, how are we to talk to him anymore?”“We are now all alone on this Earth and you people have caused this!”The new tribe did not know what to say, because Kirinyaga had not told them who they were, so how should they answer the Ma’asai?“We are the First People” the Ma’asai said, “therefore we are in charge of this good land, Kirinyaga has trusted us with the Protection of the land.”“So what are we do to?” Asked the new tribe. “We were not told our purpose.”“You have no purpose!” Cried the Ma’asai, “You caused the first death, you caused the silence of Kirinyaga, you must leave this place!”“Where shall we go?” Asked the new tribe.“To the deep forest and cold mountains, that’s all you deserve.” Answered the Ma’asai.The new tribe could not fight the Ma’asai, they were too small in stature and had no knowledge of weapons or fighting.

So they left the savanna, and went up into the highlands where the air is cold. They set up their camp in the forest under the trees, because they were ashamed that Kirinyaga would see them, after all that had happened.

The new tribe stayed in the forests, away from the Ma’asai’ s savanna, away from the valleys and hills of the Kikuyu. they ate wild roots and wild deer in the forest, and they called themselves The D’orobo, meaning ‘the outcasts’.

They are a quiet people.

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И это узрели Массаи, и сказали они новому племени:“Видите, что вы теперь натворили! Даже Кириньяга покинул нас. Как нам отныне с ним говорить?”“Мы теперь совсем одни на этой Земле, и вы, люди - тому виной!”Новое племя не знало, как ответить, потому что Кириньяга не сказал им, кто они есть. Какой же они могут дать ответ Массаям?“Мы – Первые Люди,” сказали Массаи, “и оттого мы властители над этой доброй землёй – Кириньяга доверил её под нашу Защиту.”“Что же нам делать?” спросило новое племя, “Нам не сказали, каково наше предназначение.”“Нет у вас предназначения!” разразились Массаи, “Вы причинили первую смерть, вы причинили молчание Кириньяги, вы должны покинуть это место!”“Куда же мы пойдём?” новое племя спросило.“В тёмный лес и холодные горы – это всё, что вы заслуживаете,” ответили Массаи.Новое племя не могло воевать с Массаями, они были слишком малы телом и не знали ни как сражаться, ни как применять оружие.

И покинули они саванну, и удалились в горную страну, где воздух холоден. Они развернули свой шатёр в лесу под покровом деревьев, оттого что страшились, что Кириньяга увидит их, после всего того, что произошло.

Новое племя осталось в лесах, вдали от саванны Массаев, вдали от долин и холмов Кикую. Они питались дикими кореньями и дикими оленями в лесу и называли себя Доробо, что означало “игнанники”.

Они были тихим народом.

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I look and I wonder about windows

somewhere in a fecund darkness behind the eyes,

those windowswhere light comes in to drench my cells,

as I sit under ‘Bulb and Field’, window into window. Fingers of diluted branches bloom across the glass

projected through the living-room window by a white afternoon

angling light over and over in layers. ‘Bulb’ in manic graphiteis a stifled explosion

thrilling the raw white pageas it shoots from that geometric shout of field.

My vision warps with windows on windows

as I look up – down - throughthe depths of this foetal sketch,

life quivering among the frantic lines and trains of trailed roots

and through a shadow mime of shaking branchesblooming on a window.

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Bulb and FieldSusanna Galbraith

French

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Je regarde et M’interroge sur les fenêtres

Quelque partDans une obscurité féconde derrière les yeux

Ces fenêtresD’où la lumière rentre pour étancher mes cellules

Alors que je m’assoie sous “Bulbe et Champs”Une fenêtre dans une fenêtre.

Des doigts de branches diluéesFleurissent sur la vitre

Projetés à travers la fenêtre du salonPar une blanche après-midi

Réverbérant la lumière en lamelles, encore et encore.

« Bulbe » en graphite exaltéEst une explosion réfrénée

Exaltant la page blanche et crueEn éparpillant depuis ce géométrique champs un cri.

Ma vision est déforméePar des fenêtres sur des fenêtres

Alors que je regarde en haut, et en bas- à traversLes profondeurs de cette ébauche fœtale,

La vie tremblant parmiLes tumultueuses lignes et processions de racines en enfilades,

A travers une ombre mimant le frisson des branches Fleurissant sur une fenêtre.

Bulbe et Champtrans. Marion Pérès

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‘Womb’ by Susanna Galbraith

Harbour doubtsand you will seeyour past ruinedyour future poisonedand people you loveas far away as they can be.

Harbour peace and you will seeboats of lovesafely tied, in good company.

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Kassiopi, Greece:Sinéad Fagan

Italian

Cova dubitie vedraituo passato rovinatotuo futuro avvelenatoe la gente che amisi troveranno lontano.

Cova pace e vedraibarche di amorelegate al sicuro, in buona compagnia.

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photos by Maria Romanova Hynes

Kassiopi, Greece:Sinéad Fagantrans. Fiona Lally

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23Illustration by Alice Wilson

How is it possibleTo tell precisely the grains in the sand,To discern waves on the rolling waters,To look into the ever-changing Moon,

To count clouds on the towering mounts?

The world is fleeting,One cannot see when clouds change their shapes.

To look into the ever-changing MoonIs to fix its shape on the water’s reflection;

To count the clouds on the mountainsIs to leave the mountain peaks

And look at them from afar.

How is it possibleTo tell precisely what a soul desires

When she is overwhelmed by desire;To see through the dense mist of sorrow

When hope seems to dissipate;To know the distinction between dreams that sprout with life

And illusion sprouting from dead dreams?

The Last Song of Unnar Heiðrúnar Maria Romanova Hynes

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Icelandic

Hvernig er hægtað telja öll sandkorn strandarinnar,

að átta sig á ólmum öldunum hafsins, að fylgjast með síbreytileik mánans,

að telja skýin á gnæfandi tindum fjallanna.

Heimurinn er hverfull.Maður sér ekki hvernig skýin breyta lögun.

að horfa á breytileik mánansEr að hugfesta endurspeglun vatnsins.

Að telja skýin á fjöllunumEr að kveðja gnæfandi tinda fjallanna

og skoða þau úr fjarlægð.

Hvernig er hægtað segja með vissu hvað sálin þráir,

Þegar hún er yfirkomin af þrá.Að sjá gegnum þoku sorgarÞegar vonin virðist hverfa

Að þekkja muninn milli drauma iðandi lífsog tíbrárinnar sem sprettur af dauðum draumum?

Hinsti söngur Unnar Heiðrúnar trans. Ester Bíbí Ásgeirsdóttir and Ásgeir Árnason

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The transience of beingIs the way to one’s self.

To tell precisely what a soul desiresIs to catch a glimpse of the same light of the soul;

To see through the mist of great woeIs to walk through life with shut eyes;

To know the distinction between dreams and illusionIs to learn to abandon the hope of yesterday.

I am oldAnd I am sitting by the cold sea.

Past dreams have now become last memoriesFixed in the water’s reflection;

To tell precisely of the clouds hanging over the mountain’s topIs to leave it.

And I drown.

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Icelandic

Verund þess að veraEr leiðin til að þekkja sjálfan sig,

Að nálgast nákvæmlega það sem sálin þráirEr að grípa sanna geisla sálarinnar,

Að sjá gegnum mistur djúprar sorgar,er að fara gegnum lífið með lokuð augu,

Að þekkja muninn milli drauma og veruleikaer að geta yfirgefið vonir gærdagsins.

Ég er gömulog ég sit við kuldalegt hafið.

Liðnir draumar eru orðnir hinsta minningsem speglast í endurkasti vatnsins.

Að segja nákvæmlega frá skýjunum sem hanga yfir fjöllunum,er að skiljast við þau.

Og ég drukkna.

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Painting by Lenny Buckley

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I

Wrapped in the skin of an oliveSkulled east past the statues of Florence.Gnarled through a star’s first lightFollowing the oracle of satellites.Far from the mind of the marmoset,Ganesh, in the wilds of a cigarette,Paints rainbows around black holes.

II

Nailed with arrows under StephenI watch the death of the eagle As Mr Gone and the goodbye boys Sing hello.

With fingers of burning sand I turn gelato into kwam, And in the place of golden sofas Eat my souls.

Beloved bow-legged narcissusBurns his image into bitches,And the saints who scream in whispers,Scream for more.

For Francis under Flowers Niall Mccabe

Irish

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I

Clúdaithe i gcraiceann olóige Slogtha soir thar dhealbha uasail Fhlórains.Casta trí chéad-sholas réaltaI dtóir dhraoithe na sáilghiollaí.I bhfad ó aigne an mharmoséidGanesh, i bhfásach te tobaicAg tarraingt boghanna báistí timpeall na ndúpholl

II

Céasta ag saigheada faoi StiofánAmharcaim ar bhás an IolartáinFad ‘s atá Mr Gone ‘s na Goodbye BoysAg canadh “Hello”.

Im’ mhéaracha lasta gaineamhach De gelato déanaim kwamIs in áit na dtolg órgaIte iad m’anamacha.

Narcissus ionúin cam-chosach Ag dó a íomha ar chorp na mbitseach‘S na naoimh ag olagón i gcogairAg olagón go deo.

Do Phroinsias, Fé Bhrat Bhláthannatrans. Barry Ó Séanáin

They came from the east, gray silhouettes racing through the banks of blue mist that flowed

across the steppe-land at dawn. The riders were four in number, but there were five horses, the spare nag saddled and bridled and tethered to the sergeant’s pale mount. The sound of their hooves

The Callby Robert Stephen Hopkins

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Russian

was muffled by the grass but the quiet was broken by the cracking of whips as the soldiers drove them forward, following the old sergeant who had the amber eyes of a wolf. At the heels of his horse ran a pair of ragged steppe hounds, panting and snapping at the grass-stained hooves. When they came to the forest they swung north and rode till they reached the ridge overlooking the sawyer’s house. It lay on the edge of the treeline, a long cabin built from hewn cedar topped by slanting rafters and roofed with green sod. A drystone chimney curved up one end of the building. Smoke trickled from its top. Beside the house, in the woods, was a half-acre clearing matted with sawdust. Logs, planks, boards and posts were stacked around its sides. In the middle of the ground a saw pit as deep as a grave had been dug, and a pine log, steadied by saddleblocks, had been laid over it, ready to be cut. The riders descended upon the cabin. The troopers dismounted, leaving the sergeant seated on his alabaster charger. Rifle butts pounded on the door. After a pause it swung open and an old man walked out. Though his beard was grey his chest was broad and deep, and his arms, which swung loosely by his sides, were thick and knotted. “My men are hungry. Get them something to eat.” said the sergeant. The sawyer bowed his head and turned. “Mother!” he shouted. “Bring tea and brandy, the sergeant is here!” The old man shut the door and walked round to the back of the cabin. The troopers formed a tripod with their carbines and passed around a pouch of mahorka. Cigarettes as thin as nails were rolled and licked and lit with a makeshift lighter built from a shell casing. The door opened again. An old woman and a young girl appeared, struggling with a long, trestle table. The troopers smoked in silence and watched the women drag and push the table under the canopy of an ancient elm. From the back of the house the sawyer came marching, a struggling young goose held by the neck in one hand. In his other he held a short-hafted axe. At the pine log above the saw pit he struck off the fowl’s head. He held the squirming body over the pit and doused the bright sawdust with thin jets of blood. A breeze gusted in from the steppe. The sergeant trembled like a weathercock on his saddle. A sky-blue cloth patterned with lace was laid over the trestle boards followed by a platter of black bread and a fat-bellied, copper bowl full of salt. A teapot with a spout like an elephants trunk was set centre table flanked by a bottle of pear brandy and a jug of goat’s milk. The

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young girl served the troopers, pouring tea into dented, tin cups, slicing bread, circling the men with a canister of sugar. She looked over at the sergeant swaying on his warhorse but one of the troopers, the largest one, shook his hairy head and pushed her away, back towards the cabin. He picked up the brandy and approached the sergeant, the bottle held aloft, his head bowed towards the ground. In the clearing beside the cabin the sawyer began sharpening his whipsaw, sliding the file across its long nose of iron, the noise faint, a slow, metallic grinding, almost buried beneath the cries of forest birds and the clamour at the table. The bread was followed by soup and wooden bowls of cucumber soaked in sour cream. Jointed fried goose arrived on a carved beechwood platter and the troopers set to, tearing the hot flesh from the bones with their fingers. Again the same trooper approached the sergeant, this time with a plate of goose breast, which was thrown to the hounds on the ground beside the horse. The men ate till they were sated when one-by-one they pushed their chairs back. Clay pipes were dug from overcoat pockets and once more the pouch of mahorka was passed around. After the tobacco was fired silence reigned at the table. Even the forest birds quit their chorus. All that could be heard was the scrape of the sawyer’s file against the whipsaw’s toothed edge, a monotonous iron note, repeated and repeated till suddenly it ceased. The sawyer put away his file and stood up on the butt of the log. He clipped a weight to the handle at the nose of the blade, then positioned the saw, and drew back his arm for the first downward cut. “Where is your golden-haired boy they speak so well of in the village?” said the sergeant. The sawyer paused, his eyes sighted along the top of the blade. Then he pushed his arm down and the whipsaw bit timber. A scarf of yellow dust flew out of the kerf and drifted down into the pit beneath. “Three summers past,” said the sawyer, as he continued to cut, speaking over the rasp of the iron teeth, “you came to my door and I gave you my first son. That winter you gave me a bone seed, which I planted in my garden in the forest. But nothing has grown.” The sergeant tilted his head back and drank. “That one? He died a hero’s death in the cauldron at Tannenberg. His name will not be forgotten.” At the table the troopers began cleaning their weapons. Carbine barrels were rammed with rods hooded in rags, chambers were

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scoured with bronze brushes and oiled, magazines were unloaded and checked for dirt, the bullets spilling onto the table, rolling among the heels of half-eaten bread. Three Mills grenades were produced, one from each trooper, heavy, iron fruit that weighted the table. Their pins were checked and strips of surgical tape were cut with a bayonet and pressed down over spring-loaded levers. The young girl was sent for pig fat and returned with a pot, clamped between the jaws of a forge tongs. She went from trooper to trooper, holding the pot away from her body. They each soaked a rag in the warm, melted tallow and rubbed it over their boots and their overcoats. “Where is your boy?” said the sergeant. “This isn’t a hearth tale. I won’t ask a third time.” “One summer gone you came to my table,” said the sawyer “When you left you took away my second son and now another bone seed has poisoned my garden.” “He died in a gas attack on the banks of the Daugava.” said the sergeant. “Don’t complain. You gave me a boy and I gave you a legend. But you still haven’t answered my question.” The sawyer didn’t look up from his purring blade. The sergeant laughed and pricked his horse’s flanks, spurring him next to the trestle table. The troopers stood and began stowing their weapons. “What is your name girl?” said the sergeant to the sawyer’s daughter. “Zoya sir.” she said, looking down at the lumps of tallow congealing in the pot. “How old are you?” “Twelve sir.” she said. “Can you sing? My men would like to hear a song before they leave.” She reddened and smiled. “I know The Faithful Huzzar sir.” she said. “Excellent.” said the sergeant. “Let’s have it.” He snapped his fingers and one of the troopers took the pot and tongs from her hands and the other two each hooked an elbow under one of her armpits and hoisted her onto the table. She straightened her smock then held her arms stiffly down by her sides, coughed, and began to sing. Her voice was thin but it carried across the clearing. The sawyer laid his saw aside, bowed his head and listened.

A faithful soldier, without fear,35

He loved his girl for one whole year, For one whole year and longer yet, His love for her, he’d ne’er forget.

This youth to foreign land did roam, While his true love, fell ill at home, Sick unto death, she no one heard, Three days and nights she spoke no word.

And when the youth received the news That his dear love, her life might lose, He left his place and all he had, To see his love, went this young lad. He took her in his arms to hold, She was not warm, forever cold, A long black coat, he now must wear, A sorrow great is what he bears.

She finished and glanced nervously at the soldiers and the ugly, old sergeant with the sick, yellow eyes. What was wrong? Why didn’t they clap, or at least smile? And where was Akim? That morning Father had burst into the cabin, right after cockcrow, and dragged him away in his bedshirt. He had seized her by the arm, just before the soldiers came, and told her if they asked for her brother, he was away with Uncle Iosif at the fair in Drizna. His hand had been shaking, she had felt the tremor in his fingers where they grasped her on the bicep. “Well done.” said the sergeant. “A good song. Here. For your trouble.” He reached into his overcoat, plucked a gift from his belt, leaned down from the saddle and placed it in her her hand. It was an orb of metal, heavy and cold. He took her thumb and pushed it down on a lever and pulled his hand quickly away. A pin on a brass ring dangled from his forefinger. She screamed. The troopers hissed to each other and backed rapidly away from the table on which she was standing. “Get away from her!” roared the sawyer and charged towards them, the whipsaw whirling above his head. A rifle butt tripped him, the saw flew from his hand and he fell forwards onto the ground. A trooper

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kicked the side of his face. His head twisted, he slumped and was still. Zoya screamed again. “Leave her alone!” cried a muffled voice from the sawpit. A pair of hands appeared on the embankment of earth at the pit’s edge and a blond-haired youth climbed out of its depths. He was dressed in a bedshirt and was furred in yellow sawdust - it clung to his arms, his face and his throat and in places was stippled with goose blood. “Zoya!” he cried. “Run! Run to the forest!” She twisted and leapt from the table, the grenade tight in her fist, and ran towards the forest’s edge. Within seconds she was past the treeline, racing through the understory of birchwood, her pale smock disappearing among the army of slender boles and their in cream-coloured bark. She ran faster and faster, leaping over flared buttress roots, tearing through veils of ivy, fleeing past the deadfalls whose rain-washed limbs were as ashen as bone. “Zoya!” cried Akim again, his voice fainter now, muted by the giant trunks of the veterans of the forest as she pushed deeper and deeper into the thickening, green twilight, the grenade’s trigger relentless against her thumb. “Zoya!” Akim cried a third time, but she was gone, swallowed by the woods. The troopers laughed as they dragged him kicking towards the horses. The sergeant stopped by the dreaming sawyer, leant over in his saddle. “Don’t worry.” he whispered. “ This one I’ll care for, I give you my word. To this one I’ll give my mark.” The men were still laughing when they climbed into the jeep. Behind them the burning village glowed on the skyline, sending a fountain of sparks up at the starry night. Kolya finished the bottle and threw it over his shoulder, then turned to the soldier seated next to him in the backseat. “Next time the bastards will give us what we ask for.” he said. The man nodded dully and rolled up his coat and placed it between his head and the glass of the window. His face was pale and drawn and mottled with ash. “Where’s next?” Kolya asked excitedly, jabbing the soldier in the side with his finger. The man pushed his hand away and shrugged. “I don’t know.” he said, and he nodded dully at the broad back of the man driving the jeep. “Ask sergeant Akim.”

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Они пришли с востока, серые силуэты, мчащиеся через голубой туман,

который струился по степи на рассвете. Всадников было четверо, а лошадей — пять: свободная кляча была оседлана, взнуздана и привязана к светлому коню сержанта. Трава приглушала звук их копыт, но тишину нарушали щелчки хлыстов

ПРИЗЫВ

translated by Anastasia Gilfanova and Liath Gleeson

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солдат, продвигающихся вперед вслед за старым сержантом с янтарными волчьими глазами. По пятам за его конем бежали две ободранные степные гончие, громко дыша и кусая окрашенные травой копыта. Добравшись до леса, они повернули на север, и ехали, пока не достигли холма, возвышавшегося над домом лесоруба, который находился на кромке лесополосы. Это была длинная хижина, построенная из отесанного кедра, покрытого покосившимися стропилами, с зеленой торфяной крышей. Дымоход сухой кладки кривился с одной стороны здания. Из него тонкой струйкой тек дым. Возле дома, в лесу, расстилалась полянка в пол-акра, покрытая опилками. По ее краям были свалены в кучи бревна, доски, настилы и балки. В центре была выкопана пильная яма глубиной с могилу, а поверх нее лежало готовое к распилке сосновое бревно, поддерживаемое опорными блоками. Всадники подлетели к хижине. Солдаты спешились, сержант же продолжал сидеть на своем алебастровом коне. Приклады застучали по двери. Вскоре она распахнулась, и из нее вышел старик. Несмотря на седую бороду, у него была широкая впалая грудь и толстые узловатые руки, свободно свисавшие по бокам.— Мои люди голодны. Дай им чего-нибудь съестного, — сказал сержант. Лесоруб наклонил голову и отвернулся. — Мать! — закричал он, — неси чай и водку, сержант здесь! Старик закрыл дверь и ушел в конец хижины. Солдаты соорудили треногу из своих винтовок и пустили по кругу кисет с махоркой. Они скручивали сигареты толщиной с гвоздь, облизывали их и поджигали импровизированной зажигалкой, сделанной из стреляной гильзы. Дверь снова отворилась: вышли старушка и девочка, несущие длинный стол на козлах. Солдаты молча курили и смотрели, как женщины тащили и толкали стол со столешницей из старинного вяза. Лесоруб вышел из задней комнаты, одной рукой держа за шею трепыхающегося молодого гуся, а другой - короткий топор. Дойдя до соснового бревна, лежащего поперек пильной ямы, он отрубил птице голову и вознес извивающееся тело над ямой, орошая светлые опилки тонкими струйками крови. Со степи повеял бриз. Сержант дрожал в седле, словно флюгер. Стол на козлах накрыли небесно-голубой скатертью с кружевным узором. Тарелка черного хлеба и пузатая медная чашка с солью последовали за ней. Чайник с носиком, напоминающим слоновий хобот, стоял в центре стола; рядом с ним расположилась бутылка грушевой водки и кувшин козьего молока. Девочка обслуживала солдат, наливая чай в зазубренные жестяные кружки, нарезая хлеб, поднося мужчинам сахарницу. Она посмотрела на сержанта, покачивавшегося на своем коне, но один из

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солдат, самый крупный, помотал волосатой головой и отослал ее обратно в хижину. Он взял водку и сам подошел к сержанту, высоко держа бутылку и наклонив голову к земле. На поляне возле хижины лесоруб стал точить свою пилу, проводя напильником поперек ее железного края со слабым звуком медленной шлифовки металла, еле различимым за криками лесных птиц и гомона за столом. За хлебом последовал суп и деревянные миски с огурцами в сметане. Рубленого жареного гуся подали на резной буковой тарелке, и солдаты накинулись на еду, пальцами отделяя горячее мясо от костей. Тот же солдат снова подошел к сержанту, на этот раз — с тарелкой гусиной грудки, которую сержант бросил гончим подле лошади. Наевшись досыта, мужчины один за другим отодвинули стулья от стола. Они откопали в карманах своих шинелей глиняные трубки и снова стали передавать по кругу кисет с махоркой. После того, как табак был подожжен, за столом воцарилась тишина. Даже хор лесных птиц утих. Был слышен только скрип напильника лесоруба по зазубренному краю пилы, монотонная железная мелодия, снова и снова, пока и она внезапно ни утихла. Лесоруб отложил свой напильник и встал на край бревна. Он закрепил пилу и груз на ручке у основания лезвия и отвел руку назад для первого нисходящего надреза.— Где твой златовласый мальчик, о котором так хорошо говорят в деревне? — спросил сержант. Лесоруб остановился, его взгляд скользнул поверх лезвия. Затем он опустил руку, и пила вгрызлась в дерево. Шлейф желтой пыли вылетел из разреза и осыпался в яму под бревном. — Три года тому назад, — сказал лесоруб, продолжая резать, перекрикивая скрежет железных зубцов, — ты пришел к моей двери, и я отдал тебе своего старшего сына. Той зимой ты дал мне костяное семя, которое я посадил в своем саду в лесу. Но ничего не выросло. Сержант запрокинул голову и отпил из бутылки.— Тот-то? Он погиб смертью героя в котле под Танненбергом. Его имя не будет забыто. За столом солдаты стали начищать свои ружья. Они утрамбовывали стволы винтовок прутами, покрытыми тряпками, очищали барабаны бронзовыми кисточками и смазывали их маслом, разряжая магазины и проверяя их на наличие грязи: пули посыпались на стол и покатились между корками недоеденного хлеба. Каждый из солдат достал по ручной гранате Милса — тяжелые железные плоды, утяжелившие

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стол. Солдаты проверили чеки и, вырезав штыками полоски киперной ленты, наклеили их на пружинные предохранители. Девочку послали за свиным жиром, и вскоре она вернулась с бочонком, зажатым в кузнечных клещах. Держа бочонок как можно дальше от себя, она по очереди подходила к каждому из солдат, и они по одному окунали тряпки в теплое растопленное сало и втирали его в свои сапоги и шинели.— Где твой мальчик? — спросил сержант. — И не надо рассказывать сказки. Я не буду спрашивать трижды.— Прошлым летом ты пришел к моему столу, — сказал лесоруб. — Уходя, ты забрал моего среднего сына, и новое костяное семя отравило мой сад.— Он умер во время газовой атаки на берегах Даугавы, — молвил сержант. — Не жалуйся. Ты дал мне мальчишку, я дал тебе легенду. Но ты так и не ответил на мой вопрос. Лесоруб не отрывал взгляд со своего жужжащего лезвия. Сержант рассмеялся и пришпорил коня, подводя его к столу на козлах. Солдаты встали и начали складывать свое оружие.— Как тебя звать, девочка? — спросил сержант дочь лесоруба.— Зоя, господин, — сказала она, глядя на комки сала, застывшие в бочонке.— Сколько тебе лет?— Двенадцать, господин, — ответила она.— Ты умеешь петь? Мои люди хотели бы послушать песню прежде чем уйти. Она покраснела и улыбнулась. — Я знаю “Верного гусара,” господин, — сказала она.— Прекрасно, — сказал сержант. — Давай ее. Он щелкнул пальцами, и один из солдат забрал у нее из рук бочонок и клещи, а двое других локтями подхватили ее за подмышки и поставили девочку на стол. Она расправила сорочку, скованно опустила руки вдоль тела, покашляла, и запела. Ее тонкий голосок эхом раздавался по всей поляне. Лесоруб отложил свою пилу, склонил голову и стал слушать.

Верный солдат, без страха, забот,Любил дивчину целый год,Целый год, и даже дольше,Свою любовь он не забудет больше.

Любил ее в чужой стране,Она захворала на родине.

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При смерти, никого не слышит,Три дня и ночи еле дышит.

Когда же он услышал вести,Что может и не жить его невесте,Оставил все, что только было,Лишь чтобы повидаться с милой.

Когда он обнял ее нежно,Она была холодно-снежной.Надел он угольную шаль,Несет великую печаль.

Закончив, она нервно взглянула на солдат и уродливого старого сержанта с больными желтыми глазами. Что не так? Почему они не похлопали, или хотя бы не улыбнулись? И где Аким? Тем утром, с петухами, отец ворвался в хижину, и утащил его, прямо в ночной сорочке. А перед тем, как пришли солдаты, он схватил ее руку и сказал ей, что если они спросят о брате, то он уехал с дядей Иосифом на ярмарку в Дризну. У него тряслись руки: она чувствовала дрожь в его пальцах в том месте, где они сжали ее бицепс. — Молодец, — сказал сержант. — Хорошая песня. Вот, возьми. За беспокойство. Он потянулся к шинели, сорвал с ремня подарок, наклонился с седла и положил его ей в ладошку. Это был металлический шар, тяжелый и холодный. Он взял ее большой палец, нажал им на предохранитель и быстро убрал руку. С его пальца свисала чека на латунном кольце. Она закричала. Солдаты зашикали друг на друга и быстро отошли от стола, на котором она стояла.— Прочь от нее! — взвопил лесоруб и ринулся на них, вращая пилой над головой. Но его остановил ружейный приклад, пила выпала из его рук, и он упал на землю. Один из солдат пнул его по лицу. Его голова вывернулась, тело обмякло, и он более не двигался. Зоя опять закричала.— Оставьте ее! — раздался приглушенный крик из пильной ямы. По краям ямы показалась пара рук, и на землю вылез светловолосый мальчик. Одетый в ночную сорочку, он был покрыт желтыми опилками — они прилипли к его рукам, лицу и горлу, местами с крапинками гусиной крови.

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— Зоя! — закричал он, — Беги! Беги в лес! Она резко повернулась, спрыгнула со стола, крепко зажав гранату в кулаке, и побежала к кромке леса. Через несколько секунд она уже была меж деревьев, мчась сквозь ветви берез: ее светлая сорочка затерялась среди тонких стволов и их кремовой коры. Она бежала все быстрее и быстрее, перескакивая через широкие корни, продираясь сквозь заросли плюща, пробегая мимо буреломов, чьи омытые дождем ветки пепельного цвета застыли будто кости.

— Зоя! — снова крикнул Аким, чей голос теперь был более далеким, приглушенным гигантскими стволами лесных ветеранов: она убегала все глубже и глубже в сгущающиеся зеленые сумерки, держа предохранитель гранаты неослабно под большим пальцем. — Зоя! — в третий раз прокричал Аким, но девочку уже поглотил лес. Солдаты, смеясь, потащили брыкающегося Акима к лошадям. Сержант остановился подле находящегося в полузабытьи лесоруба, и наклонился к нему, оставаясь в седле. — Не волнуйся, — прошептал он, — об этом я позабочусь. Даю тебе слово. Его я научу держать марку.

* * * * * * * * *

Мужчины все еще смеялись, залезая в автомобиль. Позади них на горизонте сияла горящая деревня, посылая фонтан искр в звездное ночное небо. Коля допил бутылку и кинул ее через плечо, затем повернулся к солдату, сидящему рядом с ним на заднем сидении.— В следующий раз ублюдки дадут нам то, о чем мы просим, — сказал он. Мужчина мрачно кивнул, свернул свою шинель и положил ее между своей головой и оконным стеклом. У него было бледное вытянутое лицо, покрытое пеплом.— Куда теперь? — воодушевленно спросил Коля, тыкая солдата в бок. Мужчина отвел его руку и пожал плечами.— Не знаю. — сказал он и мрачно кивнул на широкую спину водителя, — Спроси сержанта Акима.

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Painting by Lenny Buckley

What is most difficult of all? That which is held to be most simple: To see with one’s own eyes that which is before

everyone else’s.”J. W. Goethe

It is in these words of Goethe that Olga Sedakova, one of Russia’s most eminent contemporary poets, defines the gift of artistic vision: the poet’s gaze is not directed at something hidden from other people’s eyes, on the contrary, they perceive things common to all human experience. What distinguishes a poet, however, is their ability to discern in the commonplace a new meaning, to cleanse reality “of the poor, heavy, thick layers of ashes.” According to

The Poet as a Seer, Poetry as Foresight: A Review of Olga Sedakova’s In Praise of PoetryMaria Romanova Hynes

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Sedakova, whereas “the world is given, [poetic] meaning is bestowed” and brought into life precisely because it does not exist in the world but is needed. Thus, she argues, poetry grants “a voice to that which is silent,” and by doing so it performs “a sacred and utterly audacious act of humility.” Olga Sedakova (b. 1949) is not a casual observer when she speaks on behalf of poetry. Her published books in Russian include Chinese Journey. Steles and Inscriptions. Old Songs (1991), Poems; Prose, two volumes (2001), Journey of the Magi. Selected Works (2002), Music. Poems and Prose (2006), and An Apology for Reason (2009) among others. A renowned philologist and translator, she has published a dictionary of Russian “difficult words” (now in its third edition), where she traces the etymologies of words that are still in contemporary use but have changed their meanings across the centuries back to Old Church Slavonic; she has also translated poems by Eliot, Dickinson, Claudel, Celan, Pound, Mallarmé, Rilke, Ronsard, St. Francis, Petrarch, and Dante, while her work has been translated into eleven different languages. She is the recipient of many literary prizes, among which are the Andrei Belyi Prize (1983), the Solzhenitsyn Prize (2003), the Dante Alighieri Prize (2011), and has held teaching positions as a literary scholar at various times at such establishments as Moscow State University, the Moscow Seminary, Keele University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Stanford University. It is not surprising that a comprehensive and, indeed, long-awaited volume of her work, In Praise of Poetry, featuring both poetry and prose, has been finally published in English by Open Letter in the highly acclaimed translation by Caroline Clark, Ksenia Golubovich and Stephanie Sandler. Pursuing the goal of presenting “Sedakova as a Russian poet and as a creator of world poetry” to an Anglophone audience, Clark, Golubovich and Sandler bring together Sedakova’s two early poetic cycles “Old Songs,” blending Slavic folk traditions and biblical rhythms, and “Tristan and Isolde,” a mysterious long poem emerging from the European myth, as well as Sedakova’s 1982 essay, wherein the poet ponders over her personal artistic growth and provides

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insights into the nature of poetry. However, the present volume would not have been so accurately balanced for the translators’ purposes if they did not include two finishing pieces: an interview with the poet, conducted in December, 2012, in which Sedakova reflects back on her earlier work displayed in In Praise of Poetry, and the author’s acceptance speech when she was awarded the Masters Translation Prize in 2011 in Moscow, summarising her most salient thoughts on what the art of poetry is. In Praise of Poetry is not a collection of poems that leaves the reader alone in the world of the poet’s imagination, rather it is a book that gives a voice to the author herself, musing over the mystery of poetic creation and thus providing a point of entry for the reader immersing themselves in Sedakova’s art (probably for the first time). I feel that the essay which lends its name, “In Praise of Poetry,” to the title of the volume is the crucial backbone of the present publication, for it allows the poet to illuminate the reader’s path by her own understanding of “ideal, ultimate, miraculous poetry, of which,” she adds, “there is little in the world.” And this ultimate poetry Sedakova praises in her essay (that is both a tale of childhood and a long tract after the fashion of Horace’s Ars Poetica) is nothing short of a total victory over non-life, and for that reason “there is something of paradise in the ideal poem:”

“The real victory is miraculous: it does not conquer that which it was fighting but is a victory over a total enemy. Over the disastrous state of man, who, by nature, is incapable of fully expressing his deepest self and making it worth listening to; over the incurable longing of the part for the whole; over the seemingly insurmountable transience of the world which ‘alas, alas, Postumus, is slipping away,’ and over probably more still.”

Sedakova calls such ideal poetry “truly salvific,” but yet its utter beauty is also “terrible,” for true beauty burns as much as it heals and is akin to love. The tale of Tristan and Isolde speaks of such beauty and such love and it is probably for this reason that the myth draws Sedakova’s attention. The poet’s homonymous poetic cycle (written between 1978 and 1982), consisting of twelve poems and three preludes and translated into English by Golubovich and Clark, departs from the

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conventional recitation of the plot, for the story serves for Sedakova as a starting point for meditation on the mysterious properties of life “which are final” and is itself left “in parentheses” to the entwinement of rhythms through which “the light, delicate sound of meaning” emerges: the plot ought not have been retold but rather reenacted, thus infusing new life into the centuries-old tale. Sedakova’s impression of the myth is contrary to that of Wagner with his thunder-like blasts of the percussions and the howling of brass instruments echoing the young lovers’ yearning of passion; instead, the poet looks for that which is buried underneath the immediately visible surface of love - the light of another’s soul calling for one’s own:

But the light that was my very light,and carried the third light high,was the life of me, was the truth of meand was more me than I.(“Tristan and Isolde,” First Introduction) The sense of the mortal self that can be transcended and that is only a part (and not the best one at that) of the miraculous truth of one’s being is a recurrent theme in Sedakova’s writing. She states in “Praise of Poetry:” “There is the hope that the most loved part of your being, its sense and justifiability, will emerge in a pure form when it is freed not only from your “worst parts” but from all of you.” This “freeing” seems to be one of the essential qualities of the poet according to Sedakova who believes that apart from sincerity and mortality (“Death is present in the very intonation of poetic language: here they only speak like that at the very end”), an utmost desire to cease being themselves makes a lyric poet. Indeed, whereas the self is always fractured, there is within a human being an inherent striving for the whole, where the totality of all things is reconstructed and finally healed. And the ideal poem represents this whole in a microcosm, inasmuch as each simile speaks of the underlying unity within the poem whose meaning is “ultimately like musical meaning.” But why do people have to be so desperately incomplete within that they crave poetry to project for a mere moment the ethereal mirage

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of the primaeval, non-attainable whole? “In Praise of Poetry” gives a rather metaphorical answer. Once the two-year-old Olga saw a girl with “chestnut locks...and the blackest eyes” named Oksana in a countryside meadow. The latter was one of the “mysterious people” - children - whose life was totally different from Olga’s; different hence wondrous. The young Sedakova marvelled at the girl’s strange clothes, beauty and surroundings, and it seemed to her that Oksana had a tremendous secret, hidden from her, but tempting. ‘In the “other,”’ she later reflects, “there was...a better world, as any other world was,” and for that reason the other turned into “a charming demon,” who was simultaneously “here and...heading toward the “not-here”,” a wonderful realm, most-desired, precisely for the reason that it was absent from the observer. Absence manifests itself not only through the state of being in love but death also. It is death that teaches us what it means to be living, and for Sedakova “the living thing and the imperfect thing came to be bound up...in an irresolvable oneness.” Nothing which is living is perfect and to cherish the living is to cherish imperfection which is miraculous in itself, for it is one’s miraculous imperfection that we miss once one is gone:

Come, joy of my life, let us go,let’s walk around our garden,

and look at what has changed in the world!

Give me your hand, my sweet, my love,bring me my old walking stick.

Let’s go, before summer passes by.

No matter that I lie in my grave -there’s no end to what one forgets!

From the garden, you can see a small river,in the river, you see every last fish.

(“Old Songs,” The Third Notebook)

It is with burning love for those who were living but are presently dead that Sedakova’s “Old Songs” is imbued. First published in its entirety in Russian in 1990 and translated into English for In Praise of Poetry by Sandler, this poetic cycle is comprised of thirty-six short poems in

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three “bound-up” notebooks, dedicated to the memory of Sedakova’s grandmother, Darya Semyonovna Sedakova. Being reminiscent of biblical rhythms and spiritual poems (dukhovnye stikhi), as well as drawing its life energy from the repository of people’s wisdom, “Old Songs” is essentially an ode to Darya Semyonovna’s poetic Russian language, made up of lullabies and folk sayings; a language that awoke Sedakova’s sensitivity to words of which she speaks so dearly in her poetry: “In every word there is a road, / a melancholy and passionate path.” In this language, every word is simple and clear - “winter,” “fish,” “river” - but at the same time utterly magical, for a word is also a name which is “directly linked to a world that named it.” Words simultaneously refer to that which is mundane and is part of one’s daily experience and to that which is cosmic and is part of the universe of all things, small and big alike. When a person matches mundane and universal meanings of a phenomenon (say, “river”), they, according to Sedakova, become initiated “in unique, life-giving, miraculous meaning…[which] comes from above and is not gained by force.” This initiation she calls the gift of cognition. It thus seems to be only natural that through the web of these “simple” words in which “Old Songs” is written that an inexplicable, transcendental meaning emerges, and the cycle ends with a prayer: a prayer chanted for the dead. Sedakova’s poetry is distinguished for its musicality, style and insight. It speaks not of itself but of what lies beyond language and is in this sense “truly salvific,” being a praise for life, memory and spirit. It sings of things that are eternal and known to everyone who has ever lived. And for this reason, although born in Russian, her poetry is not bound to any one tongue, which has, indeed, been proven by Clark, Golubovich and Sandler, whose volume In Praise of Poetry was longlisted in 2015 for the Best Translated Book Award. As Sedakova’s poetry is being translated into more and more languages and has been gaining due recognition beyond its native country, one may hope that Olga Sedakova will soon be widely acknowledged as one of world poets of Russian origin, in line with such twentieth century poetic titans as Osip Mandelstam, Boris Pasternak, and Iosif Brodsky. To finish off, I would like to give the last word to the poet herself who can articulate her poetic credo better than anybody else:

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“The condition of poetry is not indulgence or a rich imagination, but responsiveness. To respond to signs that no one has actually sent out, just as buried treasure sends none out. The treasure itself is this call-sign, whose invisible and inaudible waves echo in the resonant trills of the magic pipe.”

BEADS

My grandmother’s lapis ring,my great grandfather’s books - these

I can give up, I think.But somehow these glass beadsare more than I can bear to lose.

They are bright-colored, simplelike a garden of peacocks, and

their heart is made of stars and fish scales.

Or a lake, and fish in the lake:first a black one dives up, then scarlet,then the tiniest fish, a flash of green -

he will never come back now,indeed, why should he?

I love not the poor, nor the rich,not this country, nor any other,

not the time of day, nor time of year - but I do love what is all-seeming:

it is a mysterious form of joy.It has no price - and no sense.

(“Old Songs, Poems with No Place in the Second Notebook”)

Editor’s note: all quotations in the essay are from Sedakova, O., In Praise of Poetry, trans. and ed. by Caroline Clark, Ksenia Golubovich, and Stephanie Sandler (Rochester: Open Letter,

2014), 183.

Harriet Bruce

gone fishing

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わたしの王国中村　仁美

訪れるひとの想いさえあれば、何でもないような土地も聖地である。

著名な作家の記念館やお墓を訪れて旅をすることが、学生の頃

からわたしのささやかなライフワークだ。なかでも2012年の初

夏に訪れたアイルランドのイニスキーンという小さな村の記憶

は特別である。首都ダブリンから北へ90キロ向かった先にある

イニスキーンは、パトリック・キャヴァナ ― いまも多くの人

に愛される、20世紀半ばのアイルランドを代表する詩人 ― の

故郷である。当時ダブリンの大学で文学を学んでいた私は、課

題ばかりの日々に息を詰まらせてしまい、あるとき突然田舎へ

深呼吸をしに行こうと思い立った。フラットメイトに「キャヴ

ァナの幽霊に会ってくる」とだけ告げ、朝から駆け足で長距離

バス乗り場へ向かったのは、6月のある日曜のことだった。自

由な旅のコーディネーターは、自由なわたし。好きな詩集と必

要な小物だけをかばんに詰めて走った。天気はアイルランドに

似つかわしくない晴天。自分の身体をすっぽりと包むコーチバ

スの座席から、ぎゅっと濃いモスグリーンの景色だけを見てい

た。

一時間半ほどしてラウス州のダンドークという街でバスを降

り、タクシーでさらに30分ほど先のイニスキーンへと向かう。

舗装されていない道を行くと、身体も揺れ、白い粉塵が舞い、

運転手の訛りのきつい英語もなぜかいっそう粗野に聞こえる。

あたりは広大な農地ばかりで、鮮やかな緑にアクセントを添え

る白い羊たちが何とも素朴だ。タクシーを降りるとあたりには

小さな食料品店とパブが一軒ずつ、そしてコミュニティ・セン

ターと学校があるだけだった。コミュニティ・センターの前に

Japanese

55

The thoughts of visitors are enough to turn even unremarkable-seeming places into holy ground.

Ever since my student days, it has been my own, modest life’s work to visit the graves and museums of celebrated authors. Of all the places I’ve traveled in the course of this pursuit, the memory of my visit to the tiny Irish village of Inniskeen in the early summer of 2012 stands out. Inniskeen, located some ninety kilometers north of the capital city of Dublin, is the hometown of Patrick Kavanagh, a representative mid-twentieth-century Irish poet still widely beloved. At the time of my visit, I had been studying literature at Trinity College, Dublin, and had begun to feel smothered by the daily round of coursework. So, one day, I suddenly decided to light out to the countryside for a deep breath of fresh air. It was a Sunday morning in June when I set off on foot for the overland bus stop, giving no explanation to my roommate other than that I was going to meet Patrick Kavanagh’s ghost. It was a completely spontaneous journey, and my own freedom allowed me to wander as I pleased. I stuffed into a bag an anthology of poems that I liked, along with a few other small necessities, and dashed out the door. It was a very un-Irish-like sunny day. I sat in the snug embrace of the overland bus seat and drank in the deep, moss-green landscape going by.

About an hour and a half later, I got off the bus in a town called Dundalk, in County Louth. From there, it was a further thirty minutes or so by taxi over unpaved roads to get to Inniskeen. My body swayed in the taxi as we kicked up white dust behind us; for some reason, even the taxi driver’s thickly accented English sounded rougher. The rustic surroundings comprised nothing but vast farmlands, with white sheep dotting the vivid green fields. When the taxi pulled in to Inniskeen, there was a grocery store, a pub, a community center, and a school. That was it. In front of the community

My KingdomHitomi Nakamura trans. Jason Morgan

ある少し錆びた馬看板には、「BINGO」とだけ書かれてある。キ

ャヴァナが小説『タリー・フリン』のなかで描いたように、村

の集まりでこうしたゲームに興じること、そして酒をあおるこ

とは今も人々の社交手段であるようだ。

タクシーの代金が思ったよりも高く、ゲストハウスの主人に立

て替えてもらったことは想定外だった。当然のように村にはATM

も、銀行も、観光案内所さえ見当たらなかった。パブに入って

みると、厚い一枚板カウンターに、ウィスキーを片手に粛々と

した時間を過ごす男性が並んでいた。観光客なぞに振り向きも

しないその大きく武骨な背中に、常連の印が押されている。再

度外へ出る。目の前の一本道に自然とキャヴァナの詩句が浮か

んでくる。

A road, a mile of kingdom. I am kingOf banks and stones and every blooming thing.一本の道、一マイルの王国。わたしが王だ。土手や石や、すべての咲き誇るものたちの。（ “Inniskeen Road: July Evening”「イニスキーンの道：七月の晩」より）

イニスキーンは彼の王国であり、世界の縮図でもある。この何でもないような小さな教区に身を置いていても、人間の普遍的経験をうたうことはできる。そう主張するのが彼の詩学だ。

1994年に開館したキャヴァナの記念館は、1820年設立の聖メアリー教会を改築した建物である。アイルランドらしい、石肌がはっきりわかる堅固な壁が印象的だ。その脇に墓地があり、キャヴァナと彼の妻はそこに眠っている。キャヴァナのお墓は最も年季が入っており、慎ましく、良い意味で「主張」がなかった。青い空の下、苔のついた墓の上に、薔薇が一輪だけそっと置かれていた。あたりはとても静かだった。「あなたに会いに来ましたよ」と、口に出してみた。キャヴァナの幽霊には聴こえたかもしれない。

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Japanese

center there was a free-standing, slightly rusted sandwich board-type sign on which was written one lone word: “BINGO”. Just as Kavanagh had described it in his novel, Tarry Flynn, the social life of the people of Inniskeen even today seemed to consist of gathering together as a village to amuse themselves with bingo and quaff drinks.

The taxi fare had been more than I had expected—but even more unexpected was when the man who ran the guest house had to advance me the money so I could pay the driver. There were, of course, no ATMs in Inniskeen, no banks, nor even the hint of a tourist information center. When I walked into the pub, I saw men lined up at the thick-topped bar, passing the time solemnly with glasses of whisky in one hand. They looked for all the world like regulars, not even bothering to turn their big, uncouth-looking backs to glance at a tourist coming through the front door. I went back the way I had come and was, again, standing along the street. That single stretch of road immediately called to mind a line from one of Kavanagh’s poems:

A road, a mile of kingdom. I am kingOf banks and stones and every blooming thing.(excerpted from “Inniskeen Road: July Evening”)

Inniskeen was Kavanagh’s kingdom, a microcosm of the whole world. Kavanagh had stayed behind in this seemingly uneventful little parish, but had still been able to write poems about the same human experiences that everyone else knew. This is the essence of Kavanagh’s poetics.

The building that houses the Patrick Kavanagh Centre, which opened in 1994, used to be, before it was reformed to make way for the new occupant, St. Mary’s Church, founded in 1820. It is a very Irish structure, particularly notable for its solid walls with a clearly discernible texture to the facing stone. Beside the church is a graveyard, where lie Patrick Kavanagh and his wife. The Kavanagh grave is the most distinguished, modest and reserved, “unassertive” in the good sense of the word. The moss-covered headstone stood up under the blue sky, one wreath of roses laid quietly on its crown. Everything around was quiet. I hazarded a little greeting: “I have come here to meet you.” Who knows but that the ghost of Patrick Kavanagh heard what I had said?

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客が私だけだったこともあり、記念館の受付の女性ロザリーンは一つひとつの展示をくわしく説明してくれた。キャヴァナの直筆の手紙、デスマスク、模型や肖像画など、その場でしか見ることのできないものを食い入るように見る。ロザリーンはわざわざわたしのために視聴覚室を開けてキャヴァナのビデオを見せてくれ、「明日も開けるからおいで」と言ってくれた。最後までわたしが差し出す入館料を受け取らず、「道に迷ったら」と記念館の番号をメモした紙を手渡してくれた。

ゲストハウスには、わたしのほかに二人の中年のフランス人が滞在しているだけだった。話しかけてみると、彼らは近くの沼で釣りをすることが目的で来たらしい。キャヴァナに興味があって来たことを告げると、よくしゃべる方の男性が「有名なの？知らないなぁ」と陽気に笑った。物珍しがられるというのは、良い気分でもあった。今夜だけ、イニスキーンはわたしだけの聖地なのだという気がした。もう一人の男性は英語が得意でないらしく、よく焼けた鶏のグリルを黙々と口へ運んでいた。

女性客はわたしだけなので、ゲストハウスの主人の奥さんが絶えず気にかけてくれた。少し早口で、空気を含んだように話すこの地方独特の話し方は、その夜何とも温かく聴こえた。部屋の窓からは、キャヴァナが詩にうたったような美しいイニスキーンの星々が見えた。

Beauty was thatFar vanished flame,Call it a starWanting better name.「美」であったのはあの遠くに消失した炎、星と呼んであげてましな名を欲しがってはいるけれど。（ “A Star”「星」より）

Japanese

As I was the only visitor, the woman at the Centre’s reception desk, Rosaleen, was able to explain each of the exhibits in fine detail. I looked with intense concentration at all the things that one could see only at that place: Kavanagh’s hand-written letters, his death mask, and models and portraits of the man. Rosaleen opened up the audio-visual theatre especially for me and showed me a Patrick Kavanagh video, and then invited me to come back again tomorrow, promising to let me into the theatre again. She refused all my attempts to pay the admission fee, and then, as I left, handed me a note on which was written the Centre’s telephone number. “In case you get lost,” she said.

The only other people staying at the guest house besides myself were two middle-aged men from France. When I asked what had brought them to Inniskeen, they said they had come to do some fishing in one of the ponds nearby. Then I told them that I was here because I was interested in Patrick Kavanagh. “Is he famous?” asked the more talkative of the two with a good-natured laugh. “I’ve never heard of him!” The air of novelty surrounding Patrick Kavanagh produced a pleasant feeling within me, as though, for one night at least, Inniskeen was to be my own private sacred place. The other French visitor seemed unable to speak English very well, and just sat there eating his well-grilled chicken in silence.

As I was the only female guest, the guesthouse owner’s wife knew no end of troubling herself over me. The people in the Inniskeen area speak rather rapidly, and have a peculiar quality of inflating their words with extra measures of air, as it were—a way of speaking that warmed me on that particular night. Through the window of my room, I could see the beautiful stars hanging over Inniskeen, just as Kavanagh had written about them in his poems.

Beauty was thatFar vanished flame,Call it a starWanting better name.(excerpted from “A Star”)

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翌日、ロザリーンにもらった地図を手に村を歩き回った。キャヴァナにゆかりのある土地を眺め、彼が歩いただろう道をたどる。自分の足取りに意味を感じる ― それも旅の醍醐味だ。広い空、緑の大地、アイルランドの荒々しくもさわやかな風。そしてそれを端から端まですべて知り尽くしているかのような、大きな体つきの農夫たち。少し経つとお決まりのように途中で小雨が降り始め、鼻をくすぐった。ロザリーンに別れの挨拶をしにキャヴァナ記念館へ帰ると、彼女は「論文が書けたら教えてね」と連絡先を教えてくれた。彼女が見せてくれた真心は、わたしの胸をじんと鳴らした。こういう人に守られるキャヴァナは幸せ者である。

ダブリンに戻ったわたしは、その後無事に大学を卒業して日本に帰国した。ロザリーンとのやり取りは今も続いている。多くの文学者や作家のゆかりの地を訪ねてきたが、イニスキーンほど遠く、いまも星のように輝き、胸を熱くする土地へ足を運んだのは初めてだった。イニスキーンという村はキャヴァナのゆかりの地、そして釣りスポットである以外の特色は何もない。しかしあの日以来、わたしにとっては王国であり、聖地であり、これから何度でも巡礼をしに帰るべき場所だと思っている。キャヴァナを読む度に蘇るイニスキーンの記憶は、これからもずっとわたしの心の拠り所である。

Japanese

The next day, I went on a walk around the village, using a map that Rosaleen had given me. I gazed out on the land with which Kavanagh had been connected, and followed the paths down which he had possibly also walked. I felt the significance of my own footsteps—one of the true charms of traveling. There was the wide-open sky, the green land, and the wild but invigorating Irish winds. And then there were the burly farmers, who seemed to have a complete knowledge of all of these things. As if on cue, when a little time had gone by a light rain began to fall, tickling my nose. I went back to the Patrick Kavanagh Centre, where I had earlier bid farewell to Rosaleen, and she gave me her contact information so that I could let her know if I ever wrote about Kavanagh in an essay. The sincerity that she shared with me made my own heart leap—how happy for Patrick Kavanagh to be watched over by such a person as she.

I made my way back to Dublin, where I later graduated from university and then went back home to Japan. I still keep in touch with Rosaleen. I’ve been to many places associated with writers and other literary types, but Inniskeen was the first of its kind, for never had I visited a place so far away, or one that glows so warmly in my breast, or that shines so brightly, even now, like a star in the sky. There are just two things that are notable about the village of Inniskeen—its good fishing, and its association with Patrick Kavanagh. But ever since my trip there, Inniskeen has been, for me, a kingdom, holy ground, a place to which I feel I should return on pilgrimage time and again. Every time I read the works of Patrick Kavanagh, my memories of Inniskeen come back to life, and those memories will always be a safe haven within my own heart.

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Harriet Bruce

dream machine

thank you for reading.

Print version: ISSN 2009-8294Online: ISSN 2009-8308, found at trinityjolt.com© the Trinity Journal of Literary Translation, TCD, Dublin, Ireland, 2015