Synopses & Reviews
A remarkable poetic account of a man and his daughter. Though relatively unpublished in the Soviet Union until the late 1980s, Gennady Aygi's work has been translated into some twenty languages, and has received major acclaim through many parts of the world. Child-and-Rose is a unique collection of poems and prose chosen and arranged by the author and translator. Taking as its central themes childhood, sleep, and silence in relation to poetic creation, the book is divided into five sections"Veronica's Book," "Sleep-and-Poetry," "Before and After the Book," "Silvia's World," and "Poetry-as-Silence"all written between 1972 and 2002. In this collection, each poem is a carefully crafted space of language that surfaces from the heart of a poetic consciousness at "the limits of intelligibility," as the translator notes. Images of Aygi's Chuvash homelandbirches, oaks, snow, roses, fieldsmix with a disrupted syntax, astonishing turns, gaps, and suspensions that all speak to a quiet stillness of being.
Review
The most original voice in contemporary Russian poetry, and one of the most unusual voices in the world. (Jacques Roubaud, Times Literary Supplement)
Review
An imagistic compression and a real time candor that recalls Robert Creeley, but is utterly unique. (Publishers Weekly, 23 June 2003)
Review
Modernity and postmodernity interact with the pagan dances and songs of the poet's ancient ancestral culture. (American Book Review, Gabriella Ekman, January/February 2004)
Review
Its utterances seem to nourish and deepen one another...there is much...which haunts the attention and demands engagement. (Poetry Wales, Lyndon Davies, Fall 2003)
Review
Stunning poetry of childhoodparticularly of infancyas well as of sleep, silence, and domesticity. (Rain Taxi, Hank Lazer, Winter 2003-2004)
About the Author
Gennady Aygi was born in 1934 in the village of Shaymurzino, in the Chuvash Autonomous Republic, some 500 miles east of Moscow. Due to his ties with Pasternak, Aygi was expelled from the Gorky Literary Institute, and went on to found a society of underground artists in Moscow. He has worked at the Mayakovsky Museum, organizing art exhibitions, although he has lived in poverty for most of his life. He lives in Moscow. Peter France's gorgeous translations have benefited from a friendship with the author for nearly thirty years.