Take me to Stavanger.With limpid northern eyesI’ll live amidst the ice.Perhaps after all the lossesand partings,the ice will warm me.My soul, you’re hanging on strings.I’ll unhook you tenderly.A clump of grass by the lazy lagoon.Who knows?Perhaps a house,without a trace of heat. Возьми меня в СтавангерВозьми меня в Ставангер,я стану жить во льдахс прозрачными от севера глазами.Быть может, после всех потерьи расставанийсогреет лёд меня.Душа, висящая на струнах,я бережно сниму тебя с крюка.Клочок травы у медленной лагуны.Кто знает?Быть может, дом,где вовсе нет огня.
Take Me to Stavanger
Anzhelina Polonskaya
Translated from the Russian by Andrew Wachtel
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“Take Me to Stavanger” from Take Me To Stavanger by Anzhelina Polonskaya, translated by Andrew Wachtel. All rights are controlled by the University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, PA 15260. Used by permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press.
Anzhelina Polonskaya is a Russian writer and artist from Malakhovka, a small town near Moscow. She is the author of A Voice, To the Ashes, and Paul Klee’s Boat, all of which were translated into English by Andrew Wachtel. Her poetry has also been translated into German, Dutch, Slovenian, Latvian, and Spanish.
Andrew Wachtel is President of inVision U (Almaty, Kazakhstan), and a co-founder of Compass College of Art and Design (Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan). Previously, he served as Rector of Narxoz University in Almaty, and President of the American University of Central Asia in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Before coming to Central Asia, he was dean of The Graduate School and director of the Roberta Buffett Center for International and Comparative Studies at Northwestern University. A fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, his academic interests range from Russian literature and culture to East European and Balkan culture, history, and politics, to contemporary Central Asia. He works as a translator from multiple Slavic languages and consults on educational projects throughout Eurasia.
Amid the din of Russia’s patriotic sentiments and Instagram instants, is there any room left for the voice of a poet? Despite the many entertainments and distractions of modern life, Anzhelina Polonskaya’s spare but cutting poems in Take Me to Stavanger declare a wholehearted “Yes.” This bilingual Russian-English volume makes a refuge for the poet and her readers, plumbing the depths of contemporary melancholy and ennui. Beautifully crafted idiosyncratic dissections of a strong individual who refuses to go along with the currents of popular culture or political jingoism invite readers to slow down and pay attention.
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