Also in Poetry:

111...274981850_8207193032684795_676205720021135199_n
After the Russian bombing.
Alya Khaitlina. Day Four.

 

Someone who lives inside me is twenty-five weeks.
For twenty-five weeks I’ve been his bread and bedsheets.
And if I’m now sobbing or screeching,
What do I teach him?

Someone inside the subway has turned three days old.
He knows no daylight, but he knows fire and cold.
He lies on a little wool blanket, surrounded by
So many hands and eyes.

Someone stuck in the bomb shelter has just turned five.
He’s already learned to stay silent to stay alive,
Not to whine “Mommy, toons” or “don’ wanna eat that.”
Children learn fast.

I don’t give a damn how old the kremlin man is,
But the ground must split and swallow him right where he stands,
And on the spot where this happens, I have no doubt,
Nothing green will sprout.

His spit shall foam, and his blood shall turn into shit,
And on his grave “Serves him right” shall be writ,
And the kids – let the kids learn to whine again.
Thus the war will end.
 

* * *

ЧETВЕРТЫЙ ДЕНЬ

Человеку внутри меня двадцать пять недель,
Двадцать пять недель я и хлеб ему, и постель.
И когда я сейчас рыдаю или кричу,
То чему я его учу?

Человеку внутри метро вот уже три дня,
Он не знает света, но знает запах огня.
Он лежит на полу, на пледике, а вокруг
Столько глаз и рук.

Человеку в убежище стало недавно пять,
Он уже научился в нужный момент молчать
И не ныть “мама, мультик” и “это не та еда”,
Дети быстро учатся, да.

Мне плевать, сколько лет человеку внутри кремля,
Но тотчас же должна расступиться под ним земля,
И в том месте, где это, надеюсь, произойдёт,
Ни один росток не взойдёт.

Пусть слюна его станет мылом, а кровь дерьмом,
На надгробье его напишут “и поделом”,
Ну, а дети – пусть дети снова сумеют ныть,
Это будет конец войны.
 

About the Author:

1. Аля фото
Alya Khaitlina
Munich, Germany

Alya Khaitlina was born in St. Petersburg in 1987. In 2012, she moved to Germany, where she still lives. She is a philologist by training, a linguist by profession, a specialist in children’s language development, a translator, and a poet by calling.

About the Translator:

manin_2021 (1)
Dmitri Manin
California, USA

Dmitri Manin is a physicist, programmer, and translator of poetry. His translations from English and French into Russian have appeared in several book collections. His latest work is a complete translation of Ted Hughes’ “Crow” (Jaromír Hladík Press, 2020) and Allen Ginsberg’s “The Howl, Kaddish and Other Poems” (Podpisnie Izdaniya, 2021). Dmitri’s Russian-to-English translations have been published in journals (Cardinal Points, Delos, The Café Review, Metamorphoses, etc) and in Maria Stepanova’s “The Voice Over” (CUP, 2021). In 2017, his translation of Stepanova’s poem won the Compass Award competition. “Columns,” his new book of translations of Nikolai Zabolotsky’s poems, was published by Arc Publications in 2023 (https://eastwestliteraryforum.com/books/nikolai-zabolotsky-columns-poems).

Alya Khaitlina Аля Хайтлина
Bookshelf
by Ilya Perelmuter (editor)

Launched in 2012, “Four Centuries” is an international electronic magazine of Russian poetry in translation.

by Ilya Ehrenburg

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.

by William Conelly

Young readers will love this delightful work of children’s verse by poet William Conelly, accompanied by Nadia Kossman’s imaginative, evocative illustrations.

by Maria Galina

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.

book cover galina 700x500 431792346_806631041304850_1823687868413913719_n
by Aleksandr Kabanov

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.

by Yulia Fridman

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)

Videos
Three Questions. A Documentary by Vita Shtivelman
Play Video
Poetry Reading in Honor of Brodsky’s 81st Birthday
Length: 1:35:40