Andrey Lopukhin. Translated by Dmitri Manin

Also in Translations:

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A Watercolor by Emil Nolde
Andrey Lopukhin. Translated by Dmitri Manin

 
they tamed the pungent pug-nosed thrust

and force of the life-giving earth

the silly snow and foolish frost

managed at last to bury her

over her blossoming love spell

they set the crust and pulled the shroud

and gagged her with ripe age to quell

her malleable virgin mouth

and the matured earth fell to silence

like an upset disgruntled child

just murmured grumbling in defiance

for unaccounted and unfiled

warmth gone for good or lying low

and out of mind but the new year’s

dawn with the down of pristine snow

will cure the frozen clay of fears
 

The Original
 

смиряя терпкий тупорылый

нахрап живительной земли

снег и морозец-простодыра

похоронить её смогли

заволокли и задубили

её цветенья приворот

и кляпом зрелости забили

подвижной девственности рот

и возмужала замолчала

чуть не обиженно земля

мычала разве что начала

неподотчётного тепла

какого с холода приходом

простыл и след и пар но пух

снегов излечит новым годом

застывшей грязи перепуг
 
2017

About the Author:

Lopuhin FB photo
Andrey Lopukhin
Moscow region, Russia

Andrey Lopukhin was born in 1958. In 1996, he graduated from the Literary Institute. Born in Kamchatka, he lives and writes in the Moscow region.

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).

Andrey Lopukhin Андрей Лопухин
Bookshelf
fireflies
by Dmitri Manin, Anna Krushelnitskaya

A hybrid scholarly and literary volume of popular Russian-language Soviet children’s texts alongside essays that outline the significance and meanings behind these popular texts.

cockroach cover
by Nina Kossman

A collection of nonsense poetry for readers who love Edward Lear, Hilaire Belloc, and all things delightfully peculiar.

Naza s book
by Naza Semoniff

A haunting dystopia some readers have called “the new 1984.” In a society where memory is rewritten and resistance is pre-approved, freedom isn’t restricted; it’s redefined. As systems evolve beyond human control and choice becomes a simulation, true defiance means refusing the script, even when the system already knows you will.

Version 1.0.0
by Nina Kossman

 

A new book of poems by Nina Kossman. “When the mythological and personal meet, something transforms for this reader…” -Ilya Kaminsky

Videos
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EastWest Literary Forum Bilingual Poetry & Prose Reading. July 13, 2025.
Length: 2 hrs. 08 min