Into the Snow

Gennady Aygi (1934-2006) is widely considered to be one of the great avant-garde poets from the former Soviet Union. He wrote and lived during times of extreme terror and suffering for the people of the Soviet Union and because of the repressive censorship, like many writers of his generation Aygi could only publish his work abroad, and even then at great peril to himself and the people who helped him smuggle his work out of the country. Sarah Valentine's first book of translations, Into the Snow: Poems by Gennady Aygi (forthcoming from Wave Books, fall 2011), is a collection of poems translated from the Russian-language poetry of Chuvash poet Gennady Aygi (1934-2006). Individual translations have been featured in the Two Lines anthology Some Kind of Beautiful Signal, as well as in journals such as diode, Circumference, and Redaction: Poetry and Poetics. Sarah has a BA in Russian Studies and Creative Writing from Carnegie Mellon University and a PhD in Russian Literature from Princeton University. She has received a Templeton Foundation grant for her research at Princeton University's Center for the Study of Religion and a prestigious Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Humanities at UCLA. Sarah lives in Los Angeles and is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of California, Riverside, in the Department of Comparative Literature and Foreign Languages where she teaches Russian literature, comparative literature, film, and critical theory.

• IntroductionOnce Again: Into the SnowA Few Notes on PoetryPeopleGirl in ChildhoodDream: Flight of the DragonflyNow Always SnowThe Last RavineSilenceFarewellSilenceUntitledOn Reading the Poem “Untitled” AloudAgain: In Breaks Between SleepField near Ferapontovo“Swallow”: A Way of ConnectingMotherSilencePines-with-BirchPine on RockRose of SilenceBidding Shalamov FarewellAnd: One Year LaterThe Shaman and the PotatoFive MatryoshkasHunger — 1947Kazimir MalevichSummer with AngelsThe Tale of the Aging HarlequinWinter BenderN. Kh. Among the PaintingsDegree: Of StabilityField: At the Height of WinterThis Year’s RosesOutskirts: Winter Without PeopleReading NorwidPast and UtopianRegarding a Long-Distance ConversationSong from the Time of Your ForefathersLittle Tatar SongExcerpts from Thirty-six Variations on Chuvash and Tatar Folk SongsTwo EpiloguesGarden — GriefResponse to a Friend’s BookExcerpts from Thirty-six Variations on Chuvash and Mari Folk SongsExcerpts from Twenty-eight Variations on Chuvash and Udmurt Folk SongsStarting from the FieldLong AgoSummer with PrantelIn the Middle of the FieldUntitledField — Without Us