A review by lauren_endnotes
Stolen Air: Selected Poems of Osip Mandelstam by Osip Mandelstam, Christian Wiman
5.0
STOLEN AIR: Selected Poems of Osip Mandelstam, translated from the Russian by Christian Wiman with contributions and Introduction by Ilya Kaminsky, 2012 by Ecco.
You're one person when you pick up a book, and when you finish, you're quite another. That's definitely how this one struck me.
Initial thoughts when I picked up this slim volume of modernist Russian poetry: past-time, a toe-in-the-water, a let's see why I keep seeing his name mentioned.
Post-reading thoughts: is this what perfection looks like? Did I just read my favorite poetry collection ever?
I've read this collection THREE times since Friday. Twice aloud to myself because the poems *sing* in a way I haven't quite encountered. Wiman's translation is sublime.
The Introduction essay by (NBA-shortlisted) poet Ilya Kaminsky propelled me right into more research on Mandelstam, and his unique poetic style. #Kaminsky notes Mandelstam's birthplace in Poland and his family's migration to Russia, learning Russian as his second language. He muses if this is why Mandelstam's use of language is different, more playful with onomatopoeia and lilting phrases and meter.
In 1934, Mandelstam wrote a short poem and recited it to some friends at a gathering. One of these friends informed on him and his subversive words about Joseph Stalin. Mandelstam was arrested and imprisoned for this act. And it wasn't the last time either. Mandelstam and his wife, Nadezhda, were both arrested again, and sent to the gulag, where Mandelstam later died in 1938. Nadezhda survived and went on to write several books / memoirs about her and Osip's lives. Right after reading this, I ordered a copy of her book, Hope Agaist Hope, and some of Osip's translated essays.
You're one person when you pick up a book, and when you finish, you're quite another. That's definitely how this one struck me.
Initial thoughts when I picked up this slim volume of modernist Russian poetry: past-time, a toe-in-the-water, a let's see why I keep seeing his name mentioned.
Post-reading thoughts: is this what perfection looks like? Did I just read my favorite poetry collection ever?
I've read this collection THREE times since Friday. Twice aloud to myself because the poems *sing* in a way I haven't quite encountered. Wiman's translation is sublime.
The Introduction essay by (NBA-shortlisted) poet Ilya Kaminsky propelled me right into more research on Mandelstam, and his unique poetic style. #Kaminsky notes Mandelstam's birthplace in Poland and his family's migration to Russia, learning Russian as his second language. He muses if this is why Mandelstam's use of language is different, more playful with onomatopoeia and lilting phrases and meter.
In 1934, Mandelstam wrote a short poem and recited it to some friends at a gathering. One of these friends informed on him and his subversive words about Joseph Stalin. Mandelstam was arrested and imprisoned for this act. And it wasn't the last time either. Mandelstam and his wife, Nadezhda, were both arrested again, and sent to the gulag, where Mandelstam later died in 1938. Nadezhda survived and went on to write several books / memoirs about her and Osip's lives. Right after reading this, I ordered a copy of her book, Hope Agaist Hope, and some of Osip's translated essays.