There will be no coffins. Our children will burn to ashes
In a mobile oven, and the smoke will swirl and waft
Over the fields of Ukraine where the black plume meshes
With the smoke of wildfire – up there, on the left.
Instead of the body, the doorbell will ring, a polite
Army captain will bring the ashes in a neat package
And place it silently on the bookshelf, right
By the photo of a brave soldier with demob patches,
Turned a contractnik. The captain will open his briefcase,
With a jerk of his head, as if something bothered
Him, he’ll fish out a paper, establish a base
On the stool, hold it out: sign here for non-disclosure.
She’ll sign. He’ll pick up his briefcase and hustle on
Past the TV with a crooning pop singer clown
And a bunk bed where on top the younger son,
A ninth-grade student leans over and stares down
At him as intensely as if waiting for a box of his own.
~ ~ ~
Гробов не будет. Наших детей сожгут
В походной печке, а дым развеют
Над украинским полем, и чёрный жгут
Сольётся с дымом пожара – вон там, левее.
Вместо тела вежливый капитан,
Позвонив в квартиру, доставит пепел
В аккуратном пакете и молча положит там,
Под фотографией, где залихватский дембель
Перерос в контракт. Расстегнув портфель,
Вынет бумагу и, дёрнув шеей,
Будто что-то мешает, усядется, как на мель,
На табурет: подпишите неразглашенье.
Она подпишет. И он поспешит назад
Мимо телека с Басковым недопетым
И двухъярусной койкой, где младший брат,
Девятиклассник, с него не спускает взгляд,
Свесившись – будто ждет своего пакета.
Tatiana Voltskaya is a Russian poet and a freelance correspondent for Radio Liberty in St. Petersburg. She was a laureate of the Pushkin scholarship (Germany, 1999), awards of the Zvezda magazine (2003), and the Interpoetry magazine (2016). Winner of the Voloshin competition (2018), the All-Russian poetry competition “The Lost Tram” (2019). In 2020, she became one of the winners of the competition announced by the composer Ilya Demutsky. She has been awarded the Pyotr Weil Free Russian Journalism. Voltskaya’s poems, as well as her reviews, were published in many Russian literary magazines; her work was translated into Swedish, Dutch, Finnish, Italian, English, and Lithuanian. She has authored eleven collections of poetry.
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).
Launched in 2012, “Four Centuries” is an international electronic magazine of Russian poetry in translation.
“The Lingering Twilight” (“Сумерки”) is Marina Eskin’s fifth book of poems. In Russian.
A collection of moving, often funny vignettes about a childhood spent in the Soviet Union.
“Vivid picture of life behind the Iron Curtain.” —Booklist
“This unique book will serve to promote discussions of freedom.” —School Library Journal
A new collection of poems by Ian Probstein. (In Russian)
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.