The Banyan Review: Julia Nemirovskya

Boris Dralyuk is a literary translator and the Executive Editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books. He is co-editor (with Robert Chandler and Irina Mashinski) of The Penguin Book of Russian Poetry, editor of 1917: Stories and Poems from the Russian Revolution and Ten Poems from Russia, and translator of Isaac Babel, Mikhail Zoshchenko, and other authors. His poems have appeared in The New Criterion, The Yale Review, Jewish Quarterly, and elsewhere.

Bio: 
Julia Nemirovskaya is a Moscow author and literary critic. She graduated from Moscow State University (1987; PhD, 1991) and teaches culture and theater at the University of Oregon. In 1980s, she participated in the "new wave" underground group of poets and Kirill Kovaldzhi literary seminar. She published several books of poetry and prose (with Vodolei) and a study of Russian cultural idioms (with McGraw Hill). Her poems and stories have appeared in Znamya, Vozdukh,Okno, Novyi Bereg,Two Lines, Asymptote, Candlestick Press Poetry Pamphletes, Exchanges, Washington Square Review, etc. and are translated into English, French and Bulgarian.

Apocalypse (a poem in five parts)

White (Plague)
Eyes clouded overMouth firmly coveredThough gloves I caressSweet emptiness

Red (War)
Upon scorched eartha hand soaked in bloodI searched for a leftbut a right turned up

Black (Hunger)
Granny Liza is bloatedher legs all puceIn the oven are burdockand shoots of spruceCondensed milk in the sideboardneath a robeout of viewLean year aheadgirlsbut you'll pull through

Pale (Death)
The moon makes them swoonthey treat it so nicethough she and I bothare missing our eyes

Light (Woman clothed in the Sun)
Terribledreamjudgmentholiday
Old mendrinkingair
Colder and coldertake my coatyou are bare
Fewdeathsfitup there
Allis filled

with light

(Translated by Boris Dralyuk)


Юлия Немировская
Апокалипсис

Белый (Чума)
Очи мои матовыУста запечатаныЯ ласкаю сладкуюПустоту перчатками

Огненный (Война)
Земля горелаярука кроваваяИскала левуюпопалась правая

Вороной (Голод)
Баба Лиза опухланоги багровыеВ пещь солодку лопух ипобеги еловыеЕсть ещёв комодепод халатом сгущёнкаБудет годголодныйне помрёте девчонки

Блед (Смерть)
От луны прямо млеютк ней ласково к ней на тыхоть у нас у обеихглазки повыколоты

Свет (жена, облечённая в солнце)
Страшныйсонсудотпуск
Старикипьютвоздух
Похолодалооденьты не одета
Вверхусмертейпомещаетсямало
Всёзанятосветом

Fork and Spoon

My fork and my spoon, like mama and papa,for the millionth time look up and stare,while the mouths of my slippers gape openand dawn gives the bedsheets a scare.Get up, go to sleep, get up… I’m so used tothese ways — it’s a shame to fleeto where, I was told, every day is a feast dayand the trains all rush to the sea.

(Translated by Boris Dralyuk)
*
Вилка и ложка
И вилка и ложка, как мама с папой В мильонный раз глядят на меняИ рот открывает разиня тапокИ света пугается простыня —Встаю, и ложусь, и встаю: привыкла Настолько, что жаль уходить туда, Где, мне говорили, всегда каникулы, И мчатся к морю все поезда.

Julia Nemirovskya

Apocalypse (a poem in five parts)

Fork and Spoon

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