WINNER of the 2023 Heldt Prize for Best Literary Translation
(Association of Women in Slavic Studies)
WINNER of the 2023 AATSEEL Best Poetry Translation
(American Association of Teachers of Slavic & Eastern European Languages)
In these concise and sensory poems, Anna Glazova invites us to watch the world unfold — a snow-covered bud, a bee, a swamp, the fur of an animal, an ice hole — as well as the human life cycle as it turns and returns. Glazova is also a photographer, and light, shadow, and darkness filter through these poems. Listening is important, too:
“put your ear to the ground: the log and the bark beetle
sing as one — they begin.”
Glazova came of age during perestroika, moved to Germany as a young woman, and received her doctorate in the U.S. Her poetry is strongly influenced by Paul Celan, whose work she has translated to Russian. She has published six books of poetry, and in addition to Celan, has translated the work of Unica Zürn, Robert Walser, Franz Kafka, Walter Benjamin, Franz Rosenzweig, and Werner Hamacher. She won the Andrei Bely Prize for her poetry collection, For the Shrew. She is teaching at Dartmouth University during the fall of 2022.
Alex Niemi's poetry and translations from the French, Russian, and Spanish have appeared in The Offing, Columbia Journal, Asymptote and other publications. She is the translator of The John Cage Experiences by Vincent Tholomé (Autumn Hill Books, 2020) and the author of the poetry chapbook, Elephant (dancing girl press, 2020). She received her MFA in literary translation from the University of Iowa. She lives in Milwaukee.
For the Shrew
For the Shrew
Anna Glazova
Translated from Russian by Alex Niemi
Poetry
160 pages | Bilingual (Russian & English)
$17
ISBN 978-1-938890-95-6
"These faithful and accurate translations can give those without Russian the confidence that they are reading a close reproduction of Glazova’s original texts. For those with Russian—whether learners or the more proficient—the dual-language text is a great asset and instructive in the art of translation. It is a great pleasure to trace Niemi’s versions of the Russian and to see how idiom and image find their expression in English, how compression and precision are reproduced in a language that struggles more than Russian to convey these qualities.
This collection by Zephyr press is beautifully produced.
—Emily Lygo, Slavic Review
"In this newly translated work, Niemi captures the subtlety of the Russian original, remaining true to the tone and simplicity. This side-by-side bilingual volume is refreshing on every page. of the language. [...]
Every stanza in For the Shrew is a ballad for the quiet. The way the book is organised in themes renders each poem a surprising little digest that could be either read standalone or as part of a multi-page epic. The bilingual version of For the Shrew brings sensibility and deep empathy that only few works are able to."
— Katherine Leung, Lossi 36
"Zephyr’s handsome bilingual edition offers each crystalline poem in its original Russian next to Alex Niemi's English translation, which consistently preserves Glazova’s striking thoughts and spiky construction while managing to bring the contents effectively into a new language... A true achievement, this book is an exceptional resource both for newcomers to contemporary Russian lyric and for its connoisseurs."
— Award citation, 2023 AATSEEL Best Poetry Translation Prize