the colony? the colony
mordovian? mordovian
mordovian venal colony
last night the night before
not jungle not mongolian
not turkic not moldovian
not times not immemorial
last night the night before
three chins all fat three chins all fat
inebriate inebriate
spiked chitinous spiniferous
rank rancid odoriferous
mordorous mordoriferous
hirsute cahoot incancerate
free freeborn libertarian
antiauthoritarian
free pastured endless prairian
my motherland
my smotherland
my murderous
my ogreous
my borehole frozen
deep
now may she thrive
eternally
heep heep heep heep heep heep
The Original
в колонии? в колонии
в мордовии? в мордовии
в мордовии в колонии
в колонии в мордовии
вчера позавчера
не в джунглях не в монголии
не в кушке не в молдовии
не сорок лет не двести лет
вчера позавчера
мордатая мордатая
поддатая поддатая
колючая колючая
вонючая вонючая
чернучая чернучая
махра вохра мохнатая
народная народная
свободная свободная
вольготная вольготная
страна моя
струна моя
мошкрушная
мокротная
мерзлотная
дыра
да здравствует
товарищи
ура ура ура
Vladimir Druk is a Russian-born poet and inventor, one of the founding members of the Moscow Poetry Club in the waning days of the Soviet Union. “He is considered one of the leaders of the new wave of avant-garde Russian literature [….] his experimental verse, echoing the work of the early Futurists of Russia, a poetry, which digs into the roots of language in an effort to untangle meaning beyond language” (by John High, 2012). His collections include The Drawn Apple (DL, Moscow, 1990), The Switchboard(IMA-Press, Moscow, 1991), Disposable Birds (NLO, Moscow, 2009), The Second Apple (J-Press, New York, 2000), Days Are Getting Longer (TTFA, Moscow, 2013), and Alef-Bet: Numbers, Forms and Nominations (NLO, Moscow 2018) which received a prize known as Moskovsky Schyot diploma. His work has appeared in literary journals and leading poetry anthologies such as 20th Century Russian Poetry, Crossing Century: The New Russian Poetry and Third Wave, and has been translated into over 15 languages. He now lives in New York dividing his time between poetry and projects at Textonica, а digital incubator and interactive books publishing company he created.
Anna Krushelnitskaya (b.1975) lives in Ann Arbor, MI. Anna’s original texts and translations appear in Russian and in English in various print and online publications. She has authored two collections of poems in English. Anna’s most voluminous work is the 700-page bilingual interview collection Cold War Casual/ Простая холодная война (2019).
Launched in 2012, “Four Centuries” is an international electronic magazine of Russian poetry in translation.
Ilya Ehrenburg (1891–1967) was one of the most prolific Russian writers of the twentieth century. Babi Yar and Other Poems, translated by Anna Krushelnitskaya, is a representative selection of Ehrenburg’s poetry, available in English for the first time.
Young readers will love this delightful work of children’s verse by poet William Conelly, accompanied by Nadia Kossman’s imaginative, evocative illustrations.
A book of poems by Maria Galina, put together and completed exactly one day before the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This is Galina’s seventh book of poems. With translations by Anna Halberstadt and Ainsley Morse.
The first bilingual (Russian-English) collection of poems by Aleksandr Kabanov, one of Ukraine’s major poets, “Elements for God” includes poems that predicted – and now chronicle – Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.
A book of poems by Yulia Fridman.
“I have been reading Yulia Fridman’s poems for a long time and have admired them for a long time.” (Vladimir Bogomyakov, poet)