Griboyedov: a second look
In the course of preparing a second edition of my 1992 translation of Griboyedov’s The Woes of Wit, I recently went on Youtube to see what new material might be available there. I wasn’t disappointed....
View ArticleNotes on Prosody: numerical classification of rhythms
I will be posting more of these “notes” from time to time. They are mostly drawn from old drafts of writings on prosody, but some will be new. This second posting is a continuation of the first. I...
View ArticleRegina Derieva (1949-2013)
I just received the sad news of the death of Regina Derieva, a wonderful Russian poet with whose works I have been involved over the years as a translator and admirer. Her range was remarkable; she...
View ArticleRegina Derieva: “I don’t feel at home where I am”
The Russian poet Regina Derieva passed away on December 11. This is her best known poem, in a musical setting I composed for it about five years ago. Performed here, in a first reading, by Maria...
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Living for Freedoms (i.m. Regina Derieva)
I was introduced to Regina Derieva’s work in 2000, or thereabouts, when I was sent a poem by my friend Igor Yefimov of Hermitage Publishers, who wondered if I might want to try and translate it. It...
View ArticleThe Wall, RIP
Berlin Und der Haifisch, der hat Zähne, Und die trägt er im Gesicht… Brecht, Threepenny Opera to C.S. As Europe’s demon slipped into the grave, The tempest in these regions reached its height. Now, in...
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The Penguin Book of Russian Poetry is out
This landmark anthology, edited by Robert Chandler, Irina Mashinski, and Boris Dralyuk, has been in the making for a number of years, and is now in print. The overall quality of the translations – the...
View ArticleRussian texts for the Penguin Book of Russian Poetry
One of the anthology’s editors, Boris Dralyuk, has set up a companion website that gives the Russian texts of all the poems included, except for those still under copyright.
View ArticleRichard Shaw (1924 – 2015)
My father died May 13, in hospice. One day short of his ninety-first birthday. His career as a geneticist was a troubled one, resulting in the many moves our family made over the years, as described in...
View ArticleToday is Regina Derieva’s birthday
Regina Derieva (February 7, 1949 – December 11, 2013) was both versatile and prolific as a writer. Her poetic work was about evenly divided between poems in free verse and poems in traditional rhyme...
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