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finita--la--commedia · 4 years

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hello! back again to ask about Marina Tsvetaeva. I haven't read any of her work, and was wondering whether you still think starting with her letters would be best? (again, haven't read anything of hers)! If so, what letters would you specifically suggest to start with? otherwise, if u think beginning with some of her other work would be better - pls tell me what! thank you so much. Always in awe of your blog. many blessings x

[ it is going to be a lengthy post ]

Letters. Still – letters. Reading them, you will be able to see and feel her astounding, absolutely unique, “undressed” and tormented Soul and with that, to truly understand and feel through, – her prose and poetry … In her case, it is important.Everything about Tsvetaeva, you must feel and hear. Never “read” or, God forbid, - ”understand”. Here is the reference to the book of her letters on Goodreads:https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/283216.The_Letters_of_Marina_Tsvetaeva?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=fvbRr8HRYi&rank=2It contains 800 letters. I never read that translation and I pray to God, - it is good. You don’t have to read all of them, I will give you the list of the correspondents with the commentaries below, so you knew who those people were. Also, you can read the letters and other works, like poetry, at the same time. Why not ?But…. the letters – first 😊 The spelling of the names may slightly vary in that book. Note that all those letters she wrote while being married. 1. To Nikolay Gronsky (1909-1934). A must read. They met in Spring of 1928, in Paris. Gronsky was 18 and Tsvetaeva – 36. A young talented poet, he was later tragically killed in a metro accident: hit by a subway car in the Paris metro, he was just 25. A suspiciously strange accident, indeed …. Yet, Tsvetaeva always believed it was, in fact – “an accident”. After he died, at the time, when their communications were already over, Tsvetaeva dedicated him a cycle of poems “Gravestone”:“Where did you go ? … Your soul —where did it go ? … Your face — where did it go ? Your face, your warmth,your shoulder — where did it go ?”

They took long walks and exchanged letters, which indicate that Tsvetaeva had a deeper attachment than that of a poetic master to a pupil, but by the late Autumn, their communication faded away … From her letter to him:“… a thirst for THAT OTHER self —not of the world of ideas,but of the chaos of hands and lips.

A thirst for the secret self.

The last self.

The imaginary self …”You can also read her letters to Pasternak, but I deeply dislike him as a person … for what he did to Tsvetaeva and what he did not do for her daughter and her son, because he was simply a disgusting coward. I do believe that Pasternak hugely contributed to what happened to her whole family, its tragedy and her suicide. By the way, the rope Tsvetaeva hanged herself on, was accidentally, given by Pasternak, when she needed to wrap her suitcase when evacuating. It is painful to read her Love letters to him, knowing all that and more. She was trustful and naïve. Not because she was a fool, but because she so strongly and stubbornly wanted to believe in the goodness of the humanity when there was and is – none.

2. To Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)Her letters to Rilke are all over the Internet I gave you the link to their correspondence in my previous reply to you. They never met, but wrote to each other intensely from May 1926 until Rilke’s abrupt death in December of leukemia. During that correspondence, Tsvetaeva fell in Love with him. She was 34 and he was 51.

Quotes from her letters to him:“For my soul is well-bred.” “Rainer, dusk is falling, I love you.”“Beloved, come to me often in my dreams. No, not that. Live in my dreams. Now you have a right to wish and to fulfill your wishes”3. To Alexander Bakhrah (1902-1977)He was 20, she was 31. At that time, he was just a young critiс Tsvetaeva had never met. She lived in Chekhia (Czechoslovakia) and he – in Berlin. She responded to his critical article on her poem and the epistolary affair had started. He published all her Love letters to him only in 1960 … “modestly” cut 1/3 out of them… 19 letters (1923), one (1924) and one (1928), when Love was already gone. Later those letters were re-published in full. No letters from him were saved.He caught her interest … and just like with Vishnyak and Pasternak before, and with Rilke, Shteiger, – later, she poured out at him all her immensity … And just like with everyone listed above, he simply couldn’t handle it.Then she met and fell in Love with someone else, in the real life: with Konstantin Rodzevich and this correspondence, as well as her Love to Bakhrah, – ended. Quotes from the letters to Bakhrah:“You have not understood my letter. You didn’t read it carefully. You didn’t take in my tenderness, nor my care, nor my human pain for you. You didn’t even understand me in myself: “and does it really matter - who is hurt ?! - to experience someone’s pain as your own – all of it you didn’t get .”“I cannot love myself, because I love; and don’t want to, because I love him.”4. To Konstantin Rodzevich (1895-1988)She was 28 and he was 31. They met in 1923 in Prague.Years later, Tsvetaeva confessed that Konstantin Rodzevich was her only true Love in life: the man who cared less about her poetry and till the very old age never understood what she Loved him for. He believed that she created a person he was not and fell in Love with that imaginary hero. Many thought and still do that the son she gave a birth to in 1925 was from him. The quote from her letter to him:“I’ve loved everything, I knew how to love everything except the other, the other who was alive. The other has always bothered me; it was a wall against which I broke, I didn’t know how to live with the living. Hence my feeling that I was not a woman but a Soul.You simply have loved me … I told you: there is a Soul. You said: there is a Life.”5. To Abram (Abraham) Vishnyak (1893-1944)I told you about him and Tsvetaeva in my previous reply. She published her letters to him and one of his in “Florentine nights. Nine Letters with a Tenth Kept Back and an Eleventh Received”.Quotes from her letters to him:“What is it to forget a human being ? - It is to forget what one suffered through him …”“Such things do not hurt me any longer, you accustomed me to them, you and everyone else …”“My total forgetfulness and my absolute failure to recognize you today are but your absolute presence and my total absorption of yesterday. As much as you were — as much you are no longer. The absolute presence in reverse. Such a presence cannot but become such an absence. Everything yesterday, nothing today.”“You make me soft (humanize, feminize, animalize) like fur.”“All these last years, my life has been so different, so hard, so icy that now I can only raise my shoulders and my eyebrows: is this me ?You soften me (make me more human, more woman, more animal) as fur does.”5. To Anatoly Shteiger (1907-1944). An absolutely must read. She was 44 and he was 29. There are 30 letters of hers saved to him from 1936 and only one to her, plus some excerpts she saved in her notes and as references to them in her letters to him. He was a young Russian emigrant-poet who lived in Switzerland, I posted a couple of quotes from his poems here. When they started an extensive correspondence, Tsvetaeva lived in Paris. A personal meeting between them took place only briefly before the correspondence had started, then he wrote her a deeply-confessional 16-pages letter to which she responded and this is how it started. She fell in Love with him. In the last, the only saved letter, he reminded her that in that first long confessional letter he tried very hard to explain to her that he was homosexual. She did not understand, didn’t catch it or, rather, what I think and believe, – she did not want to understand or catch. What she saw was only this: a young, broken-hearted man from a previous relationship, who is very ill with a tuberculosis, about to have a lung surgery and who came to her for a help. So she ran to help him, fell in Love, because she felt being needed. This what Tsvetaeva was about … As I say and write about myself: “I am there where I am needed. Make me believe I am needed … and my Soul will be yours … ”. She was the same. Quotes from her letters to him:

“I am longing for you. Never — without you. As — to be longing for a bread — means to be taken by thoughts about it. To be longing without a bread — means to be swallowed by it. Never in my life I’ve been longing – without a person. One thing — an overflow, another — emptiness. I will never be empty — by you. — I hope. (I think, I have never been empty even for a second).”

“And whether you like it or not, I already took you within, where I take everything cherished, without even contemplation, seeing it already within. You are my capture and catch, like today’s remnant of a Roman viaduct, with the dawn that breaks through and plunges in more faithfully and more eternally than the river Loing, into which it forever gazes at itself.”“But you, at certain moments, are I — to the point of strangeness”“Now I am thinking about you: thinking — you”“Your letter has gored my icy scurf, it opened up my own vibrant abyss – where you immediately and fully have engulfed yourself.”“I tell you in advance – whatever you will be, when you enter through my door, – I will be loving you anyway, because I love you already, because – the miracle has happened – and this is only about the degree of pain – the better you will be – the worse it will be – to me.”When she, finally understood the reason, why he couldn’t return her Love …. she wrote him a bitter and hurtful letter to which he responded:“Yes, you can be colder than a star if you want. I was always afraid of it.”In that last, the only saved letter, the young Shteiger with a wisdom of an old man, pointed out, in a form of a light and polite accusation, as a plain sad fact, at one of the very important characteristics of Tsvetaeva, that accompanied all to one of her relationships: all men that she ever Loved – she simply created in her exceptional unique imagination. She had to … to bring them closer to the level of the richness, vastness and the immensity of her Soul. But there were consequences: soon or later, that “image” fell off … So, Shteiger wrote to her: “You are so “powerful” and “rich”, you recreate the people you meet in your own way, but when their real, authentic image comes out, after all, – you get astonished of the vanity of those on who that “gleam” of yours is no longer applied by you…But what does the Person might feel when that created “image” of yours is no longer applied on him by you ? After you created it, enjoyed it and then – stop seeing it in him ?” . It is so very true. I do the same … From her last letters to him:“… I loved you as who I am, which is difficult to explain … ““That was a blow to my chest (in which you resided) and, if I did not fall down — then only because no human force can knock me flat any more, because I no longer permit this to humans, because I will die — standing up”“How many times ? Don’t I know that everything ends; don’t I believe that this (what is in me for you) will end one day, will ease me that I will think out of you: will become again an empty – bleak – and roomy house: domaine ?”She dedicated a cycle of poems to him “Poems To Orphans”, the 4 epigraph lines, only he could understand: “Baby walked along the road Shivering and turning blue An old woman walked that road She took pity on the orphan” Anatoly Shteiger will die of tuberculosis, in 1944 at the age of 37. So, what do you think ? Worth reading her letters first ? ***************************Now, prose and poetry.I can only recommend from what has been translated. If you spoke Russian, my recommendations would have been different. For example, I would have strongly suggested you to read her “Collated notes” and “Diary prose” she kept most of her life, but neither one of them has been translated. Some bits and pieces in various books, strangely translated as her “diaries” (!?!). Poetry.The problem with her poetry is the translation. She created words, which are untranslatable, therefore, in translation, you only get the meaning of what she wrote and in many cases, it is badly mistranslated, misinterpreted. Another thing, that she had an absolute pitch and considered the music her first language. You need to listen to her poetry in Russian to understand what she was saying in a poem … it is absolutely untranslatable. Don’t read anything translated by Elaine Feinstein. There is a special place in Hell for translators like her. She will go straight there, already reserved. Here is my short review of just 3 lines of Tsvetaeva, someone quoted, you will get an idea how bad her translations are: https://finita--la--commedia.tumblr.com/post/187285356964/your-name-is-a-kiss-of-snow-a-gulp-of-icy-springThe best translations, of her poetry, by my opinion, surprisingly, available free, on the Internet, by Ilya Shabat, a huge collection:http://lib.ru/POEZIQ/CWETAEWA/sbornik_engl.txtJust pick, randomly – any. Here is the pdf book with some of her poems I would also recommend:http://www.sumizdat.org/To_you_in_10_decades.pdfProse.

Unfortunately, I could only find one work translated into English, it is worth reading:“The Letter to Amazon” – 13 pages. You can download pdf file here, the button in the right corner, on top:https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319316122_LETTER_TO_AN_AMAZON_BY_MARINA_TSVETAEVAQuotes:“Listen to me, you do not have to respond to me, you have to just listen. This is a wound that I inflict right at your heart, at the heart of your cause, of your belief, of your body, of your heart.”“Weeping willow ! Inconsolable willow ! Willow – the body and soul of women ! Inconsolable neck of willow.”“In my youth I was quick to say to myself: I always fear letting go of the wave rising from me and carrying me to another. I always fear that I will not love anymore, that I will not learn anything anymore. But I am no longer young and I have learned to let go of almost everything – irretrievably”There is a semi-autobiographical story I would also recommend you to read, I think there is a translation: “The Tale of Sonechka”Quote:“– Marina, do you think God will forgive me for having been kissed so much ? – Do you think God counted ? – I didn’t count either.” Well … uhhhh …. let me know if you have more questions about her works, life, a family or about the correspondents I have listed above for each has a personal story.

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vasilinaorlova · 7 years

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ultima thule

speaking about hieroglyphic verse and ideographs, although they are under no obligation to make sense, it is great to encounter in them the euphony, the sonic bliss, transforming text into the polyphonic prose and restructuring the architectonics of the work. although the devices should not preclude us from getting the sense of what it is that is being said, like in the wonderful example from The Book of Forms by Lewis Putnam Turco:

“Synonymia is a paraphrase in parallel structures (“I love you; you are my beloved”); synthesis is consequence in parallel structures (“I love you; therefore, I am yours”); antithesis is the opposition of ideas (antinomy) expressed in parallel structures (“I love you, and I loathe you”); auxesis is the building up, in parallel structures, of a catalog or series that ultimately closes at the zenith (high point) of the set (the climax: “I love your eyes, hair, breasts; I love the way you walk and speak; I love you”). Epithomema is climactic summation at the conclusion of a sequence.” (Turco, 2012, 11) (emphases are the author’s, dotingly preserved, of course). I’d like to hear my streams read one day in their entirety (in which case everything that is written across one line should be pronounced simultaneously, maybe in one voice, maybe in different voices), but good declaimers are extremely rare. I once heard The Waste Land read in (I think it was The Waste Land but perhaps it was The Love Song) many voices; it was brutal. poetry cannot be read with theatrical intonations. I’ll leave the instructions to every possible turn of events concerning this text in the text itself. the universe rotates around the Earth in a fantastic flowery pattern. university is anxiety materialized. collective paranoia. so this emoticon had white gloves and whenever you signed out, it waved at you with its white little palm, a yellow round face flattened with a knowing smile. gloved gatekeeper ridiculous. little vacuole of vacuum Proust Faust autodidact augur under the auspices of suspicious Zeus I am fond of wearing corpses corsets who cares somersault: head over heels a soft leap of a spring– zving! the fish pomegranate has wondrous caviar: every bubble explodes on a biter’s teeth producing the most pleasant (albeit somewhat toooily) sensation ripe like a heavy mango: o, open palms and it falls. it has started a long travel of decay, acquired a black looong mark on its ready to burst side and I pity the mango, o, it is a lovely sight. it springs it sprouts a bulbous root cracks it gleams it has a beak the ultratulip ultima thule mad mercurial glint endure the durée of silence, a Durer of vinegar and wine, vengeance and parlance anagram a maze: the lion’s mane suppose he is: suppose she is: memoir grimoire grimmer primrose neoplatonic atheist. collecting the group names of animals for years, he learned that zebras form a zeal, whereas worms a clew (a gluey word), wolves a pack in general but route in moving; weasles form a gang, and whales, a mod; vultures form venues but while circling, kettle; turkeys, rafter; toads, knot; tigers, ambush; termites, brood, but ants, army–although termits and ants are equally apt to form colonies and nests–bacteria put together a culture, and albatrosses, rookery; baboons, troop; badgers, cete; barracudas, battery; bats, cloud; bloodhounds, sute; camels, flock; cats, pounce or clatter, and sometimes nuisance, but as kittens, they form kindle and litter. cheetahs make coalition, whereas coyots, band; crabs organized cast; deer, leash; dolphins, pod; ducks, team or paddling; foxes, skulk; giraffes, tower; goats, tribe; hedgehogs, array; kangaroos, herd; nightingales, watch; pekingese, pomp; porkupines, prickle; jackrabbits, husk, but young rabbits are called nest; salmon, run; sharks, shiver or school; snails in groups are known to bring into existence the escargatoire; and swans, bevy. school of angels. flock of demons. the university mail after the winter break suggests horseback riding classes. a postcard! what is this? who sent it? reveal yourself, mysterious stranger. misanthropology. I think Nigel Thrift introduced “misanthropy” into anthropological discourse, but we’ll likely hear more on it. something visceral. Jesus Christ is crucified on the clock hands. poetry is disappointingly vague, quite unlike technical manuals. oh those were your epistles! late realizations. he invented a new material. neither rubber, nor plastic, but something in between. this material was pretty much good for no one knew what. one could produce something like paper out of it, that is to say, relatively thin, even pieces. he demonstrated a powerpoint image with a paper airplane. “all kinds of things can be made.” only it was not a paper airplane but a new-material airplane. it was all the laboratory could come out with. I suggested, a book could be eventually made out of it. “yes,” he replied, “but the issue here is, we do not know yet how toxic this new material is exactly.” language is sea elements sea but not of water of fire I think someone (Limonov, I think) lost his manuscript in prison and restored it. Nadezhda Mandelstam restored her husband’s (Osip Mandelstam’s) poems out of memory. I think it’d be swell if she did not recollect them in fact but simply wrote them herself. I do not believe it was questioned though for the distinctiveness of his style, also his poems were rhymed, which did make it possible to memorize them. it takes a much shrewder memory to store unrhymed poetry. we do memorize impressions, not words. not bits of information but something that moved us. lost manuscripts trope. libraries set on fire. I am a Herostratus at heart. I’d burn a lot. make letters perish. I wrote on the need of preserving archives, I cannot fathom why. what a strange remark Tony Webster made when I visited him last time in his office! he said English words starting with a “z” were–what?–salty? salty? salty or yellow? I cannot now exactly remember. I only now am thinking about it. I saw professor today, and he informed me that words starting with “z“ are marked, as well as the words starting with “x,” in English (mark is something that makes something un-normal), just as in Navajo words containing “m” are strange–“m” is not amongst sounds you normally encounter. I remember Nabokov (reclining in a chair, in a canvas suit, and glasses in heart-shaped frames, famous Lolita sunglasses (I believe)) claimed that letters have different colors, and of that same opinion his wife Véra was–perhaps it was something common in perception of some group of the time (but for whom? Russian kids growing up in the upper middle class and higher class families?); however of course they had different colors for different letters. well, I don’t know if letters have colors, with the exception of “A,” which (like Derrida frames it, is “the first letter, if the alphabet, and most of the speculations which have ventured into it, are to be believed.” (Derrida, Différance, Margins, 3)) is in the perception of many, red. Malevich: font, color, form. Reference Turco, Lewis Putnam. The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics Including Old and Invented Forms. University Press of New England, 2012.

#stream of consciousness #poetry #prose

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