Synopses & Reviews
A selection of poems from one of Russia's greatest contemporary poetsTo renew the wish to live, I remember a waterfall.
It clutches at stones, hangs like a wild grapevine
In a blind homeland of stone letters, stone books—
Heres the one who takes life in totally, perishing every instant.
—from "The Waterfall"
For the Nobel laureate Joseph Brodksy, the work of Aleksandr Kushner was indispensable. "Kushner is one of the best Russian lyric poets of the twentieth century, and his name is destined to rank with those close to the heart of everyone whose mother tongue is Russian. This name is destined to outlive most of us and our children and grandchildren, as well as its bearer himself . . . Poetry is essentially the souls search for its release in language, and the work of Aleksandr Kushner is a case where the soul has obtained that release."
Kushners poems are simultaneously deeply traditional in their mastery of form—as well as in their influences, which can be traced through Akhmatova back to Pushkin—and wryly provocative in their subtle political protests and doubts about the survival of poetry. The poems in Apollo in the Grass, written after the fall of the Soviet Union as Russia entered the age of Putin, are a place where the mythical and the everyday coexist, where ancient Greece and St. Petersburg are neighbors, and the Fall of Icarus and the Siege of Leningrad are contemporaneous. Kushners Russia, a place thats "brazen, despotic, beggarly, harrowing," is a land of "creatures made of snow and bruises." But these lyrical poems are also pieces of exquisite chamber music, songs where poetry dazzles but "greatness is not sooner scaled to the heart / Than to anything very enormous."
Synopsis
The more softly the word is pronounced
The more ardent, the more miraculous.
The less it dreams of becoming a song
That much nearer it draws to music.
-from "Apollo in the Grass"
For the Nobel laureate Joseph Brodsky, the poems of Aleksandr Kushner were essential: "Kushner is one of the best Russian lyric poets of the twentieth century, and his name is destined to rank with those close to the heart of everyone whose mother tongue is Russian."
Apollo in the Grass is the first collection in English translation of Kushner's post-Soviet poems, and also includes certain earlier ones that could not be published during the Soviet era.
Kushner speaks to us from a place where the mythic and the historic coexist with the everyday, where Odysseus is one of us, and the "stern voice" of history can transform any public square into a harrowing schoolroom. This layering of times and events is also embodied in Kushner's distinctive poetic voice. Echoes of earlier Russian poets and styles enrich and complicate an idiom that is utterly natural and contemporary.
Now, as in the Soviet era, Kushner's work is especially cherished for its exemplary stoic integrity. But these lyrical poems are also pieces of exquisite chamber music, songs where poetry dazzles but "greatness is . . . sooner scaled to the heart / Than to anything very enormous."
About the Author
Aleksandr Kushner was born in Leningrad (St. Petersburg) in 1936, and his poetry resonates with its rich cultural heritage. He rose to prominence as part of the post-Stalin "thaw generation" that included Andrei Bitov, Joseph Brodsky and Evgenii Rein, and his work has reached new levels in both reputation and popularity since the break-up of the Soviet Union. He has won numerous awards, national and international, and his poems have been translated into over a dozen languages. Apollo in the Grass is the first volume in English translation of Kushners post-Soviet poems, and also includes certain earlier ones that could not be printed when they were written.