Nerdspecial Missiles fly throughout an Odessa poetry studying
A letter from Alexander Deriev, husband of the late poet Regina Derieva. The Russian couple have a helluva again story. I wrote about her in “Writ on Water,” an 2014 essay for the Instances Literary Complement right here. And I’ve written about her on the E book Haven right here and right here and right here.
She and her husband have a helluva again story. from the age of six, she lived obscurely in Karaganda, Kazakhstan, “maybe probably the most dismal nook of the previous Soviet Union – as soon as the centre of an unlimited jail camp universe, later only a gloomy industrial metropolis,” in response to the distinguished Lithuanian poet Tomas Venclova. For him, Derieva’s exact, epigrammatic poems limn “the focus camp zone, the place house is become vacancy, and time become disappearance”.
The couple met on the Karaganda black market, whereas shopping for books. She was a pianist and the daughter of a KGB higher-up, he’s an artist The 2 shared a love of Andrei Platonov and Truman Capote. They have been Russian Jews, then fled to Latvia to transform (bypassing the corrupt Russia Orthodox Church, which has infamous state ties). Then they settled in Israel, earlier than lastly relocating to Stockholm, the place she is buried after her loss of life in 2013.
Now she has a brand new e-book out, Chosen Clouds with Bondarenko M. O. , however her loss of life a decade in the past. Deriev writes:
“Pricey Cynthia, on Friday, September 20, Russian troops attacked Odessa once more with ballistic missiles. Regardless of the bombing, the launch of Regina’s Chosen Clouds in Odessa’s Literary Museum went nicely. About 40 or 50 folks attended). Nonetheless, a number of extra shows of this e-book will likely be organized in different localities quickly.” Photographers Stepan Alekyan and Vladimir Bogatyrov documented the occasion, which included translator Oleksandr Trace, and Kateryna Chernenko, the librarian of Odessa Regional Scientific Library.
The studying continued easily because the missiles fired. Grace beneath strain.
Postscript: The poet Regina Derieva was additionally an amazing collector of seashells – lots of them now housed on the Swedish Museum of Pure Historical past. Alexander lately discovered one gastropod that bears the identify Cynthia. See the connected pictures of this shell. Canefriula cynthia (H. C. Fulton, 1902) – 36 mm, Humboldt Bay, New Guinea. He notes: “It’s unlikely that the British malacologist, Hugh Coomber Fulton (1861-1942), when naming the newly found mollusk, had in thoughts the verses of Propertius addressed to Cynthia. Most probably, he used the epithet of the Greek goddess Artemis.” I’m flattered.
Tags: Alexander Derieva, Andrei Platonov, Regina Derieva, Tomas Venclova, Truman Capote
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