Vera Pavlova
Discovered her fairly recently, in the April 2012 Poetry: 100 Years.
Jumping around in the slim volume I eventually found her, and probably gravitated to her, checked her out, because of her Russian name. What was she like? Was she the "real thing"? My tentative conclusion based on her work in Poetry (not in the Poems section but in the back, in the Comment section: her work is titled, Heaven is Not Verbose: A Notebook ): maybe. Subsequent research has led me to lower my expectations re her poetry (I started thinking: somewhat slight), but if I ever purchase a volume of her poetry (I think she is usually translated by her husband, Steven Seymour) and change my mind I'll let you know.
Anyway, I wanted to post some poetry this morning. Her "notebook" entries are bulletlike (reminding me of some of my own work), and often approach IMHO "poetry." I post only a select few (i.e., some of those that I underscored, asterisked, vertically squiggled).
From Vera Pavlova's Heaven is Not Verbose: A Notebook (translated by Steven Seymour):
*Note: The vertical squiggle on this one is connected by an arrow to a name: I wrote "H. Mueller" for Herta Muller (umlaut over the "u").
Jumping around in the slim volume I eventually found her, and probably gravitated to her, checked her out, because of her Russian name. What was she like? Was she the "real thing"? My tentative conclusion based on her work in Poetry (not in the Poems section but in the back, in the Comment section: her work is titled, Heaven is Not Verbose: A Notebook ): maybe. Subsequent research has led me to lower my expectations re her poetry (I started thinking: somewhat slight), but if I ever purchase a volume of her poetry (I think she is usually translated by her husband, Steven Seymour) and change my mind I'll let you know.
Anyway, I wanted to post some poetry this morning. Her "notebook" entries are bulletlike (reminding me of some of my own work), and often approach IMHO "poetry." I post only a select few (i.e., some of those that I underscored, asterisked, vertically squiggled).
From Vera Pavlova's Heaven is Not Verbose: A Notebook (translated by Steven Seymour):
- How do I feel about people who do not understand my poetry? I understand them.
- An ideal poem: every line of it can serve as a title for a book.*
- To help a poem hatch, I went to get some groceries. Paid the cashier, got my change, came home with a finished poem and no groceries.
- Mandelstam: "Poetry is the certainty of being right." Brodsky: "Poetry is the school of uncertainty." I am not certain about either assertion.
*Note: The vertical squiggle on this one is connected by an arrow to a name: I wrote "H. Mueller" for Herta Muller (umlaut over the "u").
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