Gleb Shulpyakov © Nina Ai-Artyan Poems Armenian Triptych [a cottage swaying] [a crow leaps from one] [in my corner — built of logs, muffled —] [poetry grows from nothing —] A Fireproof Box BY Gleb Shulpyakov TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN BY Christopher Mattison (Canarium Books, 2011)

Introduction The impetus for beginning work on Gleb Shulpyakov’s poetry centered on his neo-formalism and the thematic concerns that seemed, at least on the surface, to be a completely other pursuit when compared to the experimental Third Wave poets I had been translating — protean wits like Dmitri Aleksandrovich Prigov. Shulpyakov’s writing seemed to require a different form of attention, navigating more traditional literary references and metrical patterns. I say “seemed,” because after living with his writing for a while, I began to note certain similarities between Shulpyakov and members of the Third Wave in terms of the depth of their observations, along with an encyclopedic knowledge and understanding of both the canon and contemporary colleagues. Issues of form and style that initially appeared problematical, eventually gave way to slant rhymes and patterns roughly symmetrical in English with how I had come to understand the poetry. Shulpyakov’s writing seemed to require a different form of attention, navigating more traditional literary references and metrical patterns. Our formal introduction took place at the 2000 London Book Fair. Shulpyakov had flown in to report on the event, and to continue an interview with the poet and translator Daniel Weissbort, which was linked to a larger project concerned with Joseph Brodsky as an author and translator. Over the past decade I’ve completed two collections of his poetry. The first of these, A Fireproof Box (Canarium Press, 2012), was shortlisted for the Three Percent Translation Award. A second bilingual volume, tentatively titled Letters to Yakub, will be released in early 2014, again through Canarium, and funded in part by an award from the Russian Federal Agency for the Press and Mass Communications and the Institute of Translation based in Moscow.

Christopher Mattison
© Jody Beenk

It took a relatively long time to assemble the first book of translations for two practical reasons: first, there were significant sections of the first book in Russian (Flick) that I did not think would translate effectively into English — based primarily on cultural references. So, I translated just over half of the first book between 2001 and 2003, and then continued to work on new poems over the next six years as Shulpyakov finished writing them; second, I was not yet convinced that I could pull off an entire book, considering how his poetry diverged from what I’d been used to translating and, related to that, feeling like I would need several years to read who he was reading and responding to in order to find a voice for him in English translation. Many of his briefer, denser poems were reminiscent of some of my own writing from the late nineties, which provided the additional stricture of finding a voice in English translation that was not my own. Understanding familiarity and distance.

This translational symmetry lies at the core of Gleb Shulpyakov’s work, in that his poems are layered with multiple eras and cultural referents, all existing simultaneously.

Finishing up work now on the second collection of Gleb Shulpyakov’s writing, I am feeling more comfortable in our respective skins. His understanding of the world has gradually worked its way into my allusions, so that I am no longer just reading new poems as they arrive, but starting to experience the stories behind the lines when reading the work for the first time. To expand on a point from the opening paragraph, this does not involve a “replication” or “negotiation,” but rather the development of a space that allows “symmetry” between the author and translator. On the double-page spread of an en face edition, time and the specific observer are constants, though each observer has a markedly different relationship to the dual texts. This translational symmetry lies at the core of Gleb Shulpyakov’s work, in that his poems are layered with multiple eras and cultural referents, all existing simultaneously. A standard reflective mode of translation, fixated on rhyme and syllable count, would have resulted in a disappointing monochromatic space with a tin ear.

The following poems were selected from the forthcoming collection, Letters to Yakub. Interspersed between each poem is an amalgam of responses from Shulpyakov and excerpts from my translation notebook. Taken together, they should — hopefully — add some incite into Shulpyakov’s Russian and the translation process into English.