Child- and-Rose

by Gennadii Aigi, Gennady Aygi, Peter France, Peter France (Translator)

Overview

A remarkable poetic account of a man and his daughter. Though relatively unpublished in the Soviet Union until the late 1980s, Gennady Aygi's work has been translated into some twenty languages, and has received major acclaim through many parts of the world. Child-and-Rose is a unique collection of poems and prose chosen and arranged by the author and translator. Taking as its central themes childhood, sleep, and silence in relation to poetic creation, the book is divided into five sections"Veronica's Book," "Sleep-and-Poetry," "Before and After the Book," "Silvia's World," and "Poetry-as-Silence"all written between 1972 and 2002. In this collection, each poem is a carefully crafted space of language that surfaces from the heart of a poetic consciousness at "the limits of intelligibility," as the translator notes. Images of Aygi's Chuvash homelandbirches, oaks, snow, roses, fieldsmix with a disrupted syntax, astonishing turns, gaps, and suspensions that all speak to a quiet stillness of being.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780811215367
Publisher:	New Directions Publishing Corporation
Publication date:	04/17/2003
Pages:	192
Sales rank:	809,898
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Gennady Aygi (1934–2006) was born in a village in the Chuvash Republic, a land with a Turkic language, and eventually became the Chuvash national poet, later moving to Moscow. Like Platonov, he couldn’t publish his work in the Soviet Union until the 1980s. New Directions publishes his books Child-And-Rose and Field-Russia.

Peter France  has published widely on French, Russian, and comparative literature, including the Oxford Guide to Literature in English Translation. New Directions publishes his translations of the Chuvash poet Gennady Aygi: Field-Russia and Child-And-Rose.

Peter France  has published widely on French, Russian, and comparative literature, including the Oxford Guide to Literature in English Translation. New Directions publishes his translations of the Chuvash poet Gennady Aygi: Field-Russia and Child-And-Rose.

Read an Excerpt

CHILD-AND-ROSE

---

By GENNADY AYGI

A NEW DIRECTIONS BOOK

Copyright © 2002 Gennady Aygi
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0811215369

---

Chapter One

VERONICA'S BOOK

MY DAUGHTER'S FIRST SIX MONTHS JANUARY - JULY 1983

TWO EPIGRAPHS Veronica, you are necessary ... Leonid Lavrov ... And Veronica's Hair, even here - I plaited, unplaited, I plait, unplait, I plait. Paul Celan PROLOGUE: CHANT - FATHERHOODLAND If we break this oath, may hops sink in the Volga and iron float up (from a treaty between the Bulgars and the Russians, 985 AD) if for you I have passed on then hops will sink. in-love-like-a-sea (ay-iya-yur) but when without me you pass by iron will float up from singing-like-a-sea (ay-iya-yur) 1983-1984 Moscow-Kaunas ON THE DAY OF FIRST MEETING

could of veneration this my slowed-down looking ... - and what self-recognition of another world circles - close by? ... - not a look - but untouched Word-Face: oh brief equality: One - it cannot be said! for the same Looks with the same silence (One - as the face - at the One) 18 January 1983 MY DAUGHTER'S FIRST WEEK

the quietness where the child is - seems uneven within limits - of fragile lightshadows: emptiness! - for the world Grows in her - to Listen to Itself in its Fullness 22 January 1983: HEAVEN-GRAMOPHONE

from the fields continuing out of pain soon mychild there will be for you too a schubert: Always-Unvollendete somewhere above pain to be unending from the fields February 1983 OR - WHO LOVES TO ME with what then do I love? or - who loves to me? I do not know for - despite all my obscenity so often for the baby now I seem - without changing - sacredly-painfully (it turns in a circle) pure 4 March 1983

APPEARANCE IN A SMILE

and a flower opened - to smile on the face: made new (so much in solitude) the mother-come-again shuddered: oh this circle! turn me so: not to come to my senses or to visions: praise to Pity as to God - for this strange-and-only time: it narrowed - and flashed past! I know no beginning or end: only lightwhirl! (and so strangely including - me) 4 March 1983 ON DAYS OF ILLNESS

1 the baby's illness the trees' disquiet 2 in velvet of flowers I go to sleep tossing and turning with cheeks tossing and turning amid floods: like a dream made of clumsy circles: of belatedly-needless tears: as if for my mother ... or for whom then? clearly - all the more in this mish-mash - clearly: in any case - not for our Lord 3 and trees were once like brothers in mist-into their poverty Came God amid snowdrifts (Continuing my silence as work: with sorrow - amid the trees) 4 oh God the child's shudder 11-12 March 1983 BEGINNING OF THE "PERIOD OF LIKENESSES"

and the forces of the tribe are stirred - and they float and turn like wind-and-light - carrying over your face cloud after cloud: all expressions of vanished faces - to manifest to confirm - the "definitive" appearance - your own: with fire - standing firm in turbulence! - (is it not with this same heat that - peering - I shudder: as if - amid some singing? - pain - came in like the wind) March 1983 AND: NOT TOUCHING one should fear both children's fingers and tender leaves - of birdcherry: because: there is nothing and no-one terrible in the world only God (stronger than kindness! and remembering - keep quiet): and only: you know - you 22 April 1983 CONTINUATION OF THE "PERIOD OF LIKENESSES" a passing gleam: a shade? maternal? from what depths: from unspeaking time - forgotten treasure? dream and not dream: light - reaching the face: revelation of whom then deep down with the flash of a bond - that perhaps also raises white and dark of ancient field and wind? or is it grief - flickering - in the little face of father-wandering through unknown first-circle in attempts to find himself again in the rising storm of the tribe? you sleep ... - but it wakes - ever wider ever stronger - the common-shining: hammered out in pain where then is it hiding - your fresh-and-new-found appearance - among many others? April 1983 TRANQUILITY OF A VOWEL

a 21 February 1982 NOW to O.P. my friend oh mother-child the baby's face moves away to have strength to come closer shining-quiet to the circle features of the loved-and-loving (many separately One) 2 April 1983 AGAIN-A SMILE it gleams - without age - the soul of humanity: purified - by the heart of a child (by "work"-she too works! - or rather: by work - unknown - on her behalf) - revealed to the light - invisibly - "comprehensible:" oh, what-can-I-say! - to such a source: its name is "it-only-remains unique!" - but what then - just now - is happening? - I look - I forget - I look ... - forgetting looking April 1983 QUIETNESS

oh my quiet god repeating you like a senselikeness I seem long since in a steady calm: cool you flow without change ... - only once I glanced round: the cherries had already gone over ... - the child prolongs the smile ... - only such gurgles of yours including old heart's weakness ever more intimate (with a certain whisper) from time to time - barely - show forth the clarity of the treasure "my quiet god" April 1983

---

Excerpted from CHILD-AND-ROSE by GENNADY AYGI Copyright © 2002 by Gennady Aygi
Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

---

Table of Contents

	Preface	ix
	Foreword	xiii
	Veronica's Book	3
	Foreword	5
	Dedication	9
	In Place of a Preface	10
	Two Epigraphs	11
	Prologue: Chant--Fatherhoodland	12
	On the Day of First Meeting	13
	My Daughter's First Week	14
	Heaven-Gramophone	15
	Or--Who Loves to Me	16
	Appearance in a Smile	17
	On Days of Illness	18
	Beginning of the "Period of Likenesses"	19
	And: Not Touching	20
	Continuation of the "Period of Likenesses"	21
	Tranquility of a Vowel	22
	Now	23
	Again--A Smile	24
	Quietness	25
	Bed Time	26
	Urszula and the Wild Rose	27
	A Lost Page (Or: Snow in the Garden)	28
	In the Fourth Month: Attempts at Singing	29
	Song from the Days of Your Forefathers	30
	And: At Five Months	32
	Little Tatar Song	33
	Tea Rose--The Only One in the Neighborhood	34
	Note--After Rocking	34
	Story of the Level-Crossing Gate and the Crossing Keeper's Cabin	35
	Purer than a Tear	36
	Roses of Eteri Aged Three	37
	Recognition of the Name	38
	Story of Harlequin Grown Old	39
	Smile (Meaning "Beloved")	40
	Mouse Gone	41
	Again: Rocking You	42
	Tops of the Birches--From Childhood and till Now	43
	Again--Something from the "Period of Likenesses"	44
	And: She Sleeps (in a Pram) by the Sea	45
	Song of Sounds	46
	In Days of Illness--Dream Image	47
	Written in the Fields	48
	Chuvash Song for a Girl Your Age	49
	Still Remembering the Same Temple	50
	Long Walk	50
	And: Somewhere a Little Boy is Sleeping	51
	Vision: A Young Girl	52
	Phloxes in Town	53
	Lullaby? It is Yours	54
	Ex-Libris--For You--In Verse	55
	Something--Again about a Boy	56
	Your First Sea with Me	57
	Again--Trying to Catch Expressions	58
	Little Song for You--About your Father	59
	Written Down While Sitting with You on the Balcony	60
	Pause in my Daughter's "Book"	61
	Often Five-Year-Old Asya Comes to See Us	63
	Field Dream	64
	Continuation	65
	Playing Finger Games	66
	And: Oats in Flower Beyond the Meadow	67
	Singing and Silence	68
	Again--The Third Grasshopper (Now--For You)	69
	To a Friend--Instead of a Letter	70
	First Words	71
	Again--Closeness of Roses	72
	Vision: A Girl	73
	Again--She Sleeps	74
	About This	75
	Something Precious	76
	And: The First Half Year	76
	Child-And-Rose	77
	Epilogue: Lullaby-Suwalkie	78
	And: Farewell to the Book	79
	A Last Word from the Author	80
	Sleep-and-Poetry	81
	Before and After the Book	99
	Roses in Town	101
	Mozart: "Cassation I"	102
	Now there are Always Snows	103
	About This	105
	Snow--In an "Old" District of Moscow	106
	Among Oaks	107
	Leaf-Fall and Silence	108
	Again: Appearance of a Bluetit	109
	Snow At Midday	110
	And--Strangely: "Somewhere"--My Daughter	111
	Two Little Songs for the Two of Us	112
	Again: Air in the Tops--Of Birches	113
	My Daughter's Autumn Walk	114
	Now Such a One Also	116
	House--In the Grove of the World	117
	This August's Phloxes	118
	Supper: House Outside Town	119
	Gift--A Birch Grove	120
	Awaiting a Friend	121
	House in the Field	122
	Together	123
	Quietness with a Happening	124
	Drawing Long Ago	125
	Phloxes at Night in Berlin	126
	Two Epilogues	127
	Daughter in a Clearing	128
	Birch at Noon	129
	During a Friend's Illness	130
	Fields of this Summer	131
	Drawing for Peter France	133
	With an Ancient Memory	134
	From Lines in A Dream	135
	Day--Towards Evening	136
	Long Ago	137
	Beginning from the Field	138
	The People Are A Temple	138
	From "Long Parting"	139
	Silvia's World	141
	Poetry-as-Silence	155

Editorial Reviews

With a preface by Bei Dao and translations from the Russian by Peter France, Child-and-Rose presents poet Gennady Aygi's own selection from his work. Now living in Moscow and nearly a septuagenarian, Aygi was born in the Chuvash Autonomous Republic, and writes with an imagistic compression and real time candor that recalls Robert Creeley, but is utterly unique. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly