Beginning February 1st, we are accepting submissions for our 2010 Poetry Contest!
•Submit up to 5 previously unpublished poems
•Entry fee: $10, check payable to Crab Creek Review
•Deadline for all submissions: May 31, 2010
•The winner will receive $200 and publication in CCR 2010 Vol.II
•All entries will be considered for publication
•Guest Judge: Crab Creek Review Advisory Board member and poet, Nancy Pagh
Please read the complete guidelines on our contest page.
Nancy Pagh is the author of No Sweeter Fat (Autumn House Press, 2007) and After (Floating Bridge Press, 2008), and her poems appear in many publications, including Crab Creek Review, Prairie Schooner, Rattle, Fourth River, The Bellingham Review, O magazine, and When She Named Fire: An Anthology of Contemporary Poems by American Women. She received an Artist Trust fellowship in 2007 and was the 2008 D. H. Lawrence Fellow at the Taos Summer Writers Conference. An enthusiastic performer, she was a featured poet at the Skagit River Poetry Festival and a headliner in the Gist Street Masters Series in Pittsburgh. She has taught workshops at the Whidbey Island Writers Association conference and with the Field’s End program on Bainbridge Island. She currently teaches at Western Washington University. http://www.autumnhouse.org/catalog/no-sweeter-fat-by-nancy-pagh/
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Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Sunday, January 24, 2010
The Writer's Notebook: A time and place for writing (or not) by Midge Raymond
A time and place for writing (or not)
by
Midge Raymond
www.MidgeRaymond.com
I have several writer friends who write in the morning. In the early hours of the morning. In fact, at least one of them is done with her daily writing around the time I’m getting out of bed. This me feel sort of lazy, as though I’m not a very dedicated writer.
But I’m not a night owl like many writers, either. I used to write simply whenever the mood struck me — and even once I got serious about writing fiction, I never managed to stick with a routine. Eventually I got very anxious about that. It seemed that everywhere I looked, writers were talking about their writing schedules, their dedicated spaces. Having a strict routine, and a writing sanctuary, seemed to be a prerequisite for success.
Then I learned that Raymond Carver wrote “Cathedral” on a train to New York City. And that he used to write in the back seat of his car. This — along with a few other stories from successful writers who admit to having no real schedule — helped me see that the when and where isn’t what’s important. What matters is that you write.
A lot of us become disciplined because we have to: day jobs, kids, and other aspects of Everyday Life force us to set aside that precious time to write. But what happens when you sit down for your Writing Time and absolutely nothing happens? Or if something else comes up that forces you to skip your writing hour(s)? This is when it’s good to have a Plan B.
I’ll admit that my entire writing routine is a Plan B. I still don’t have a set time of day to write, even when I’m in the middle of a project. In a way, this is a good thing: when I’m really into something, I’d never want to limit my writing to a couple hours a day anyway. But when I’m in a more challenging phase — say, that horrible first-draft stage — I have to work harder to stay inspired.
So what I do to keep a project going is to set goals, rather than dates and times. This way, I can be flexible about when and where I write but still get the work done. Some days, I’m able to devote four hours to writing; others days, I’m lucky to write for an hour. When I find myself blocked, I’ll do some research, which doesn’t result in words on the page but nevertheless keeps the project moving forward. If I find that I simply can’t stare at the computer any longer, I’ll take a notebook somewhere — and the change in perspective is almost always illuminating.
A few tips…
Know that you can write anywhere. I wrote my first published short story in a tiny corner of a railroad flat in New York City. When I moved to an even smaller apartment after that (which I didn’t think was possible), I wrote at university libraries. Even if you don’t have enough space at home (and you’d be surprised by how little you need), you can find it somewhere.
Make your writing space a special one. Wherever your writing space is, make it a place you want to be — and one you want to keep returning to. If you’re writing in the tiniest corner of your kitchen table, for example, surround yourself with books. If you’re in a cubby at the library, bring your iPod to tune out noise, or leave the laptop at home and write by hand (as Natalie Goldberg writes: “Arm connected to shoulder, chest, heart”).
Set your own rules and make people follow them. One of my early-morning writer friends put an outgoing message on her voice mail that said, “If you’re calling before 1:00 p.m., this is my writing time. I’ll get back to you after 1:00.” Ask the people in your life to take your writing time as seriously as you do.
Be flexible. Whether you’ve set aside time in the early hours of the morning or the late hours of the night, eventually you’re likely to be struck with some form of writer’s block. You can use this time for extra sleep (the subconscious can do wonders), or simply do something else that’s related, even tangentially, to your work. Research. Read. Watch a film set in the era in which your novel takes place. Listen to the type of music your character listens to. Even these little things can help create a mood that will inspire you and help get you back into the work.
And finally, if you don’t already, carry a notebook. My favorite ideas have come to me in random places, and if I hadn’t written them down, they’d have been lost. And the notebook is a good reminder that no matter where you are, you’re a writer.
_________________
Midge Raymond's short-story collection, Forgetting English (Eastern Washington University Press, 2009), received the Spokane Prize for Short Fiction. Her work has appeared in American Literary Review, Ontario Review, Indiana Review, North American Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Passages North, the Los Angeles Times, and other publications. She is on the editorial board of the literary journal Green Hills Literary Lantern.
You can learn more about Midge and her projects here: www.MidgeRaymond.com
by
Midge Raymond
www.MidgeRaymond.com
I have several writer friends who write in the morning. In the early hours of the morning. In fact, at least one of them is done with her daily writing around the time I’m getting out of bed. This me feel sort of lazy, as though I’m not a very dedicated writer.
But I’m not a night owl like many writers, either. I used to write simply whenever the mood struck me — and even once I got serious about writing fiction, I never managed to stick with a routine. Eventually I got very anxious about that. It seemed that everywhere I looked, writers were talking about their writing schedules, their dedicated spaces. Having a strict routine, and a writing sanctuary, seemed to be a prerequisite for success.
Then I learned that Raymond Carver wrote “Cathedral” on a train to New York City. And that he used to write in the back seat of his car. This — along with a few other stories from successful writers who admit to having no real schedule — helped me see that the when and where isn’t what’s important. What matters is that you write.
A lot of us become disciplined because we have to: day jobs, kids, and other aspects of Everyday Life force us to set aside that precious time to write. But what happens when you sit down for your Writing Time and absolutely nothing happens? Or if something else comes up that forces you to skip your writing hour(s)? This is when it’s good to have a Plan B.
I’ll admit that my entire writing routine is a Plan B. I still don’t have a set time of day to write, even when I’m in the middle of a project. In a way, this is a good thing: when I’m really into something, I’d never want to limit my writing to a couple hours a day anyway. But when I’m in a more challenging phase — say, that horrible first-draft stage — I have to work harder to stay inspired.
So what I do to keep a project going is to set goals, rather than dates and times. This way, I can be flexible about when and where I write but still get the work done. Some days, I’m able to devote four hours to writing; others days, I’m lucky to write for an hour. When I find myself blocked, I’ll do some research, which doesn’t result in words on the page but nevertheless keeps the project moving forward. If I find that I simply can’t stare at the computer any longer, I’ll take a notebook somewhere — and the change in perspective is almost always illuminating.
A few tips…
Know that you can write anywhere. I wrote my first published short story in a tiny corner of a railroad flat in New York City. When I moved to an even smaller apartment after that (which I didn’t think was possible), I wrote at university libraries. Even if you don’t have enough space at home (and you’d be surprised by how little you need), you can find it somewhere.
Make your writing space a special one. Wherever your writing space is, make it a place you want to be — and one you want to keep returning to. If you’re writing in the tiniest corner of your kitchen table, for example, surround yourself with books. If you’re in a cubby at the library, bring your iPod to tune out noise, or leave the laptop at home and write by hand (as Natalie Goldberg writes: “Arm connected to shoulder, chest, heart”).
Set your own rules and make people follow them. One of my early-morning writer friends put an outgoing message on her voice mail that said, “If you’re calling before 1:00 p.m., this is my writing time. I’ll get back to you after 1:00.” Ask the people in your life to take your writing time as seriously as you do.
Be flexible. Whether you’ve set aside time in the early hours of the morning or the late hours of the night, eventually you’re likely to be struck with some form of writer’s block. You can use this time for extra sleep (the subconscious can do wonders), or simply do something else that’s related, even tangentially, to your work. Research. Read. Watch a film set in the era in which your novel takes place. Listen to the type of music your character listens to. Even these little things can help create a mood that will inspire you and help get you back into the work.
And finally, if you don’t already, carry a notebook. My favorite ideas have come to me in random places, and if I hadn’t written them down, they’d have been lost. And the notebook is a good reminder that no matter where you are, you’re a writer.
_________________
Midge Raymond's short-story collection, Forgetting English (Eastern Washington University Press, 2009), received the Spokane Prize for Short Fiction. Her work has appeared in American Literary Review, Ontario Review, Indiana Review, North American Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Passages North, the Los Angeles Times, and other publications. She is on the editorial board of the literary journal Green Hills Literary Lantern.
You can learn more about Midge and her projects here: www.MidgeRaymond.com
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Thank you from Crab Creek Review...
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| Make a Smilebox slideshow |
But really, it is so worth it.
It is so worth it opening a folder of poems put together by our wonderful poetry editor, Lana Ayers, and falling in love with someone's writing. I fell in love with a couple poets this morning. I spoke up for their poems.
In so many other places in life, poetry doesn't matter. But in our group, in our pages, it does. We stand up for our favorite poems. There will be a poem overlooked and someone will say, "Wait, that was my favorite" and then it is published. Someone will say, "I love this poem, we have to take it."
And we do.
It's a magical moment. This morning in my living room with Lana & Annette, saying, "We need this poem in our journal." Needing poetry. It's a good place to be on a Thursday morning.
If you're interested in seeing Crab Creek Review for yourself and reading the poets I fall in love with, you can subscribe here.
It's only $15 a year (or 2 years for $28).
And we create a lovely perfect-bound with poems and stories from writers all over the world. It's kind of magical receiving that in your mailbox 2 times a year.
And I'll tell you a secret about the next issue and what it will include-- the first interview I've done for Crab Creek Review with Snow Falling on Cedars author, David Guterson. And poems from Molly Tenenbaum, Rachel Contreni Flynn, Kate Lebo, Cati Porter, and others who will be receiving their acceptances quite soon...
With so many print journals ending because of financial issues, we are so thankful to have such a strong readership that keeps us afloat.
Thank you all for your support of the literary arts and our journal. We so appreciate it! ~
~Kelli
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Please note correct email address for Ekphrastic Submissions Series in Crab Creek Review
The first call for submissions by CRWOPPS had an incorrect email address (it was missing the 7).
To submit poems to Susan Rich, our guest editor, for the Ekphrastic Poem Series, please use this email address:
duende3417 (at) yahoo.com
Sorry about the confusion!
To submit poems to Susan Rich, our guest editor, for the Ekphrastic Poem Series, please use this email address:
duende3417 (at) yahoo.com
Sorry about the confusion!
Monday, January 18, 2010
call for Submissions - Crab Creek Review on Ekphrastic Poetry
Crab Creek Review Call for Submissions
(www.crabcreekreview.org)
We are pleased to have our very first guest editor, Susan Rich, who will be putting together a section of poems for an upcoming issue on the theme of Ekphrastic Poetry.
Here are the details below...
Special Editor's Portfolio edited by Guest Editor, Susan Rich
Theme: Ekphrastic Poetry
We begin with the visual. Ekphrastic poetry is a response in words to a painting, photograph, dance, building, sculpture, Ikea catalogue, child’s drawing, or bumper sticker. An ekphrastic poem begins with inspiration from another piece of art and with the intuitive understanding that art begets art. In a sense, the art object becomes the rough draft of the poem.
We are looking for the best ekphrastic poems, 30-lines (or less) to showcase in an upcoming issue of Crab Creek Review.
For this project, we are accepting email submissions to the email address below. To submit to this special portfolio of ekphrastic poetry, write your name and title of the submission in the subject line and then send your previously unpublished poems in the body of an email to Editor, Susan Rich at: duende3417 (a) yahoo.com
Please send 3-5 poems at the most.
Also, include a short bio and contact info as well.
Deadline is May 31, 2010
(www.crabcreekreview.org)
We are pleased to have our very first guest editor, Susan Rich, who will be putting together a section of poems for an upcoming issue on the theme of Ekphrastic Poetry.
Here are the details below...
Special Editor's Portfolio edited by Guest Editor, Susan Rich
Theme: Ekphrastic Poetry
We begin with the visual. Ekphrastic poetry is a response in words to a painting, photograph, dance, building, sculpture, Ikea catalogue, child’s drawing, or bumper sticker. An ekphrastic poem begins with inspiration from another piece of art and with the intuitive understanding that art begets art. In a sense, the art object becomes the rough draft of the poem.
We are looking for the best ekphrastic poems, 30-lines (or less) to showcase in an upcoming issue of Crab Creek Review.
For this project, we are accepting email submissions to the email address below. To submit to this special portfolio of ekphrastic poetry, write your name and title of the submission in the subject line and then send your previously unpublished poems in the body of an email to Editor, Susan Rich at: duende3417 (a) yahoo.com
Please send 3-5 poems at the most.
Also, include a short bio and contact info as well.
Deadline is May 31, 2010
Sunday, January 17, 2010
New to Crab Creek Review - Editors' Choice Reviews!
We will add a new feature to our next issue of Crab Creek Review - Editors' Choice Reviews. These will be short, mini-reviews by our editors on our favorite books that we've read over the last year.
Because we only have so much room in our print journal, we will feature the longer review on our blog if you are interested in learning more about our favorite books.
Coming up in Crab Creek Review, Issue I of 2010-- look for reviews of
***These were 4 of my favorite books I read this year and books I highly recommend to the poets, writers, and readers of the world.
-- Kelli Russell Agodon
Publications Received
Crab Creek Review wants to thank these writers, publishers, and editors for sending us their books for possible review and for their support of Crab Creek Review.
Please support these writers in our literary community--
PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED:
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
The Writer's Notebook featuring Jamie L. Olson, PHD: On Translating Russian Poetry
*
Jamie L. Olson's translations of Russian poet, Vyacheslav Kiktenko's poems appear in the Summer '09 issue of Crab Creek Review. We asked Dr. Olson about his translation of Kiktenko's work and the process he went through to convey both the thematic and structural elements of the original Russian poems. He graciously agreed to write an entry for our Writer's Notebook Series:
On Translating Russian Poetry (and Kiktenko in Particular)
I suspect that my translations of the three poems by Vyacheslav Kiktenko that appear in the Summer 2009 issue of Crab Creek Review must have contributed to the editors’ impulse to dub this the “corpse issue,” as they did in their introductory note. Reading the first of Kiktenko’s poems—which incidentally are not arranged in any meaningful order—we experience a distinct sense of Jekyll-and-Hyde grimness as Kiktenko’s speaker gazes into a forest puddle and finds that, through his reflection, he has been “exposed as a monster.” His soul becomes “blackened” in the puddle’s “contrary hell-pit.”
The real gloom, though, arrives with the second poem, “A Cry in the Night,” which is dedicated to Sadako Sasaki, the Japanese girl who developed leukemia after being exposed to radiation in the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima. (The poem seems to be voiced for her as well.) A Japanese legend has it that anyone who folds a thousand paper cranes will be granted one wish, so with an eye towards calling for peace, Sasaki spent her last months transforming whatever paper she could get her hands on into origami cranes. Alas, she never reached her goal. Still, Sasaki’s effort has become a unifying symbol for the peace movement, and a statue memorializing her stands in Seattle Peace Park in the city’s University District.
In Kiktenko’s poem for her, however, we have only the disease, the suffering, the futile desire for life—not the peace movement that found inspiration in her, nor even the paper cranes that caught the world’s attention. By the poem's climax, all that remains is a hunger for red blood cells to displace the “white blood” (belokrovie) of the disease:
In the stars, the night keeps a cache
of blood cells slyly hidden.
And the stars transfuse the sultry,
cherry heat with a scarlet hue…
A butterfly, a chalky butterfly
flits about beneath the moon!
Ah, but for a bit, just a drop,
of those rich, crimson globes…
Yes!
Although we know that the speaker’s desire for the “rich, crimson globes” goes ungratified, just as Sasaki never finished folding her cranes, the poem remains nonetheless poignant and even uplifting; sometimes, just wishing is enough. (If everyone wished for peace, wouldn’t it ultimately happen?) But the uplift of “A Cry in the Night” comes from the form of the poem as well—a chant that builds to an exultant shout. Indeed, form in its most traditional guise is fundamental to much contemporary Russian poetry, and I hope I’ve left more than a trace of Kiktenko’s forms intact in my translations.
Let me jump right to a key point: most Russian poets would never play “tennis with the net down,” as Frost put it. That is to say, free verse doesn’t dominate Russian poetry as it does American poetry. In fact, more Russian poems are composed in tetrameter quatrains—the 4x4 blocks favored by Russian poets at least since the beginning of the nineteenth century—than in any other form. (Among Kiktenko’s poems in Crab Creek Review, the third one, “A yellowish moon,” consists in practice of tetrameter quatrains, though it lacks stanza breaks.) When translating a poem from Russian, therefore, one must consider not only the form of that particular poem, but the general preponderance of formal poetry across Russian literature. To put it another way, a Russian translator would never translate an American poem without carefully and conscientiously recreating its form in Russian, so shouldn’t I play by the same rules?
A. E. Stallings wrote in the February 2009 issue of Poetry that stripping a poem of its form amounts to a kind of pillaging: “Translators who translate poems that rhyme into poems that don’t rhyme solely because they claim keeping the rhyme is impossible without doing violence to the poem have done violence to the poem. They are also lazy.” To my mind, the violence that Stallings speaks of becomes multiplied when a Russian poem is poorly translated—that is, when it is translated without careful attention to form. In a tradition of formalism, form matters all that much more.
On the other hand, even the cleverest translator can’t always find an equivalent phrase in the target language while maintaining form, meaning, and tone, so to some degree translation must be an “act of compromise,” as Brian Boyd explains in his recent introduction to Nabokov’s Verses and Versions: no matter how much we translators strive for perfection, we must acknowledge that our task is an “inevitable compromise between the resources of From-ish and those of To-ish.” Still, we should keep striving. The mere awareness of an apotheosis of perfection, elusive as it may be, should ensure that we don’t grow complacent—or “lazy,” as Stallings puts it—and leave form by the wayside.
Others who translate from Russian to English also struggle with the issue of fidelity to form. Jim Kates, the editor of several collections of contemporary Russian poetry in English, describes an exchange in his afterword to In the Grip of Strange Thoughts that I think expresses well the tension that Russian-to-English translators feel between the two traditions:
Once in Moscow I was reading my own poems—all of which begin in strict rhyme and meter, and many of which stay that way—as well as my translations of Mikhail Aizenberg. In the critical discussion that always follows a Russian poetry reading, I explained my reasons for translating the strict forms of the Russian verses into slightly looser structures in English—a practice understood and approved by Aizenberg. But one prominent critic stood up and commented, “That’s all very well. You make a good case. But you should try harder.”
Since then, I have tried harder.
Kates has chosen, as I have, to do his best to maintain form in his translations of Russian verse, but others have made the opposite decision with sometimes impressive results. Indeed, wherever you land in the debate, you would be foolish to wish that Clarence Brown and W. S. Merwin’s marvelous free-verse translations of Mandelstam had been written any other way. In the end, the only true test of a translation comes when you ask yourself the question, Is it poetry?
The Russian originals of the poems by Kiktenko that appear in Crab Creek Review were first published in a Moscow journal called Druzhba narodov, a phrase whose figurative meaning could be rendered in English as “multiculturalism” or “cultural diversity,” and whose literal meaning, “Friendship of the Peoples,” is a Soviet-era cliché—the idea being that international communism happily held together a diverse bunch of ethnic groups from Central Europe to Central Asia. Indeed, Kiktenko was born and spent much of his life in one of those far-flung corners of the Soviet empire that were home to non-Russian “peoples”: Alma-Ata (now Almaty), Kazakhstan’s former capital and largest city. And although he relocated to Moscow a few years back, he has continued to be involved in Kazakh literary culture, often sustaining Kazakh-Russian “friendship of the peoples” as a translator himself, so it seems appropriate that his poems should now reach another people in another language—beyond even the post-Soviet audience in Baku or Belarus that one might expect him to have. I just hope that I have done my job and turned Kiktenko’s poems into something more than mere wooden renderings: with any luck, they have become English poems in their own right.
Jamie L. Olson teaches in the English Department at Saint Martin’s University in Lacey, Washington. These are his first published translations.
Jamie L. Olson's translations of Russian poet, Vyacheslav Kiktenko's poems appear in the Summer '09 issue of Crab Creek Review. We asked Dr. Olson about his translation of Kiktenko's work and the process he went through to convey both the thematic and structural elements of the original Russian poems. He graciously agreed to write an entry for our Writer's Notebook Series:
On Translating Russian Poetry (and Kiktenko in Particular)
I suspect that my translations of the three poems by Vyacheslav Kiktenko that appear in the Summer 2009 issue of Crab Creek Review must have contributed to the editors’ impulse to dub this the “corpse issue,” as they did in their introductory note. Reading the first of Kiktenko’s poems—which incidentally are not arranged in any meaningful order—we experience a distinct sense of Jekyll-and-Hyde grimness as Kiktenko’s speaker gazes into a forest puddle and finds that, through his reflection, he has been “exposed as a monster.” His soul becomes “blackened” in the puddle’s “contrary hell-pit.”
The real gloom, though, arrives with the second poem, “A Cry in the Night,” which is dedicated to Sadako Sasaki, the Japanese girl who developed leukemia after being exposed to radiation in the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima. (The poem seems to be voiced for her as well.) A Japanese legend has it that anyone who folds a thousand paper cranes will be granted one wish, so with an eye towards calling for peace, Sasaki spent her last months transforming whatever paper she could get her hands on into origami cranes. Alas, she never reached her goal. Still, Sasaki’s effort has become a unifying symbol for the peace movement, and a statue memorializing her stands in Seattle Peace Park in the city’s University District.
In Kiktenko’s poem for her, however, we have only the disease, the suffering, the futile desire for life—not the peace movement that found inspiration in her, nor even the paper cranes that caught the world’s attention. By the poem's climax, all that remains is a hunger for red blood cells to displace the “white blood” (belokrovie) of the disease:
In the stars, the night keeps a cache
of blood cells slyly hidden.
And the stars transfuse the sultry,
cherry heat with a scarlet hue…
A butterfly, a chalky butterfly
flits about beneath the moon!
Ah, but for a bit, just a drop,
of those rich, crimson globes…
Yes!
Although we know that the speaker’s desire for the “rich, crimson globes” goes ungratified, just as Sasaki never finished folding her cranes, the poem remains nonetheless poignant and even uplifting; sometimes, just wishing is enough. (If everyone wished for peace, wouldn’t it ultimately happen?) But the uplift of “A Cry in the Night” comes from the form of the poem as well—a chant that builds to an exultant shout. Indeed, form in its most traditional guise is fundamental to much contemporary Russian poetry, and I hope I’ve left more than a trace of Kiktenko’s forms intact in my translations.
Let me jump right to a key point: most Russian poets would never play “tennis with the net down,” as Frost put it. That is to say, free verse doesn’t dominate Russian poetry as it does American poetry. In fact, more Russian poems are composed in tetrameter quatrains—the 4x4 blocks favored by Russian poets at least since the beginning of the nineteenth century—than in any other form. (Among Kiktenko’s poems in Crab Creek Review, the third one, “A yellowish moon,” consists in practice of tetrameter quatrains, though it lacks stanza breaks.) When translating a poem from Russian, therefore, one must consider not only the form of that particular poem, but the general preponderance of formal poetry across Russian literature. To put it another way, a Russian translator would never translate an American poem without carefully and conscientiously recreating its form in Russian, so shouldn’t I play by the same rules?
A. E. Stallings wrote in the February 2009 issue of Poetry that stripping a poem of its form amounts to a kind of pillaging: “Translators who translate poems that rhyme into poems that don’t rhyme solely because they claim keeping the rhyme is impossible without doing violence to the poem have done violence to the poem. They are also lazy.” To my mind, the violence that Stallings speaks of becomes multiplied when a Russian poem is poorly translated—that is, when it is translated without careful attention to form. In a tradition of formalism, form matters all that much more.
On the other hand, even the cleverest translator can’t always find an equivalent phrase in the target language while maintaining form, meaning, and tone, so to some degree translation must be an “act of compromise,” as Brian Boyd explains in his recent introduction to Nabokov’s Verses and Versions: no matter how much we translators strive for perfection, we must acknowledge that our task is an “inevitable compromise between the resources of From-ish and those of To-ish.” Still, we should keep striving. The mere awareness of an apotheosis of perfection, elusive as it may be, should ensure that we don’t grow complacent—or “lazy,” as Stallings puts it—and leave form by the wayside.
Others who translate from Russian to English also struggle with the issue of fidelity to form. Jim Kates, the editor of several collections of contemporary Russian poetry in English, describes an exchange in his afterword to In the Grip of Strange Thoughts that I think expresses well the tension that Russian-to-English translators feel between the two traditions:
Once in Moscow I was reading my own poems—all of which begin in strict rhyme and meter, and many of which stay that way—as well as my translations of Mikhail Aizenberg. In the critical discussion that always follows a Russian poetry reading, I explained my reasons for translating the strict forms of the Russian verses into slightly looser structures in English—a practice understood and approved by Aizenberg. But one prominent critic stood up and commented, “That’s all very well. You make a good case. But you should try harder.”
Since then, I have tried harder.
Kates has chosen, as I have, to do his best to maintain form in his translations of Russian verse, but others have made the opposite decision with sometimes impressive results. Indeed, wherever you land in the debate, you would be foolish to wish that Clarence Brown and W. S. Merwin’s marvelous free-verse translations of Mandelstam had been written any other way. In the end, the only true test of a translation comes when you ask yourself the question, Is it poetry?
The Russian originals of the poems by Kiktenko that appear in Crab Creek Review were first published in a Moscow journal called Druzhba narodov, a phrase whose figurative meaning could be rendered in English as “multiculturalism” or “cultural diversity,” and whose literal meaning, “Friendship of the Peoples,” is a Soviet-era cliché—the idea being that international communism happily held together a diverse bunch of ethnic groups from Central Europe to Central Asia. Indeed, Kiktenko was born and spent much of his life in one of those far-flung corners of the Soviet empire that were home to non-Russian “peoples”: Alma-Ata (now Almaty), Kazakhstan’s former capital and largest city. And although he relocated to Moscow a few years back, he has continued to be involved in Kazakh literary culture, often sustaining Kazakh-Russian “friendship of the peoples” as a translator himself, so it seems appropriate that his poems should now reach another people in another language—beyond even the post-Soviet audience in Baku or Belarus that one might expect him to have. I just hope that I have done my job and turned Kiktenko’s poems into something more than mere wooden renderings: with any luck, they have become English poems in their own right.
Jamie L. Olson teaches in the English Department at Saint Martin’s University in Lacey, Washington. These are his first published translations.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Guest Blogger: Kathi Morrison-Taylor
Today's blog post is by poet Kathi Morrison-Taylor, author of By the Nest...
The Oven Timer
On the first day of the MFA program, a professor asked our class, “Why do you write?” We wrote in our notebooks and then discussed our responses in class. A surprising number of students, myself included, answered “Because I have to.” At 22, I was bewildered by the sort of gentle scolding that ensued. What was wrong with this debonair, senior poet that he didn’t understand the inescapable power of the muse? But now I get it– I don’t have to write. The choice to write can become inconvenient and difficult. The choice to write is something I have to fight for, fighting harder, perhaps, as my life grows richer.
My husband is more practical than I am and knowing how much I cherish free time to write, he asks me questions: Why are you baking those cookies for your students? Why are you reading The Lord of the Rings to our children? Why are you planting tomatoes again this year? (I don’t have to.)
It’s August; this last August. (Remember August?) The oven timer is on, and I’m at my computer. The oven timer is serious business in our house. When it goes off you better be ready to move on – out the door to the bus stop, or off the computer game to the homework task, or back inside and into the tub.
While my family is loading the car for our annual long weekend at the ocean – the last hurrah before school begins—I am trying to pry my weekly poem from a pop culture prompt, and I’ve put myself on the clock. I’m in one of the final weeks of a poetry contest modeled on Project Runway – Dustin Brookshire’s Project Verse. I find myself tangled in emotions and details: a scene from Star Wars, my father’s autopsy report, a rubberband ball of grief, longing, anger, regret...
“Where’s the crabbing net?!” someone yells from upstairs.
Little feet coming down...”Mommy, when are we getting new sandals?” Then, “Oh, I forgot...your poem, the contest.”
The timer is on – something my kids understand. I have one hour and forty-eight minutes left. While none of us imagines I’d really be left behind, the threat seems more real with that digital countdown.
Now, watching my middle school students and my own children grow and learn, I feel the years accelerating, becoming both more fleeting and more pressing. In a good way—in a garden tomato way, sweet and labor-intensive. Milestones matter. Bilbo is eleventy-one at the beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring, a milestone of a birthday that never fully registered in my childhood reading of Tolkien. At 111 Bilbo makes his own new beginning, as he leaves the Shire to write his book. In fact, it was the magic age of 40, combined with missing my final opportunity to enter the Yale Younger Poet’s Prize (that was the year the deadline changed) that convinced me to put away my old manuscript. I began something new, By the Nest, which became my first book of poems, dedicated to my family. And, off the page, dedicated to the oven timer that helps me manage the childish part of myself and focus on writing, something I have chosen to do.
_____________________
The Oven Timer
On the first day of the MFA program, a professor asked our class, “Why do you write?” We wrote in our notebooks and then discussed our responses in class. A surprising number of students, myself included, answered “Because I have to.” At 22, I was bewildered by the sort of gentle scolding that ensued. What was wrong with this debonair, senior poet that he didn’t understand the inescapable power of the muse? But now I get it– I don’t have to write. The choice to write can become inconvenient and difficult. The choice to write is something I have to fight for, fighting harder, perhaps, as my life grows richer.
My husband is more practical than I am and knowing how much I cherish free time to write, he asks me questions: Why are you baking those cookies for your students? Why are you reading The Lord of the Rings to our children? Why are you planting tomatoes again this year? (I don’t have to.)
It’s August; this last August. (Remember August?) The oven timer is on, and I’m at my computer. The oven timer is serious business in our house. When it goes off you better be ready to move on – out the door to the bus stop, or off the computer game to the homework task, or back inside and into the tub.
While my family is loading the car for our annual long weekend at the ocean – the last hurrah before school begins—I am trying to pry my weekly poem from a pop culture prompt, and I’ve put myself on the clock. I’m in one of the final weeks of a poetry contest modeled on Project Runway – Dustin Brookshire’s Project Verse. I find myself tangled in emotions and details: a scene from Star Wars, my father’s autopsy report, a rubberband ball of grief, longing, anger, regret...
“Where’s the crabbing net?!” someone yells from upstairs.
Little feet coming down...”Mommy, when are we getting new sandals?” Then, “Oh, I forgot...your poem, the contest.”
The timer is on – something my kids understand. I have one hour and forty-eight minutes left. While none of us imagines I’d really be left behind, the threat seems more real with that digital countdown.
Now, watching my middle school students and my own children grow and learn, I feel the years accelerating, becoming both more fleeting and more pressing. In a good way—in a garden tomato way, sweet and labor-intensive. Milestones matter. Bilbo is eleventy-one at the beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring, a milestone of a birthday that never fully registered in my childhood reading of Tolkien. At 111 Bilbo makes his own new beginning, as he leaves the Shire to write his book. In fact, it was the magic age of 40, combined with missing my final opportunity to enter the Yale Younger Poet’s Prize (that was the year the deadline changed) that convinced me to put away my old manuscript. I began something new, By the Nest, which became my first book of poems, dedicated to my family. And, off the page, dedicated to the oven timer that helps me manage the childish part of myself and focus on writing, something I have chosen to do.
_____________________
Monday, November 23, 2009
Pushcart Prize Nominations for 2009!
Crab Creek Review would like to congratulate the following contributors whose work we nominated for this year's Pushcart Prize from either our Fall/Winter 2009 issue or our Summer 2009 issue--
Shannon Robinson for her story "Everyone Has A Tell"
Martha Silano for her poem "Women are Not Alone and That"
Tod Marshall for his poem "Bait"
Fernando Perez for his poem "In The Mirror When You're Wearing Someone Else's Clothes"
Lisa Allen Ortiz for her poem "The Tortoise Survives the Fire"
Elizabeth Austen for her poem "Humans"
Congratulations! And good luck!
Shannon Robinson for her story "Everyone Has A Tell"
Martha Silano for her poem "Women are Not Alone and That"
Tod Marshall for his poem "Bait"
Fernando Perez for his poem "In The Mirror When You're Wearing Someone Else's Clothes"
Lisa Allen Ortiz for her poem "The Tortoise Survives the Fire"
Elizabeth Austen for her poem "Humans"
Congratulations! And good luck!
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Lisa Allen Ortiz featured on Verse Daily (from Crab Creek Review's Summer '09 issue)
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Lisa Allen Ortiz's poem, The Tortoise Survives the Fire, from Crab Creek Review's Summer '09 issue is featured today on Verse Daily. You can read Lisa's poem here.
The poems of Lisa Allen Ortiz have appeared in Zyzzyva, Comstock Review and Literary Mama among other places. She lives in Santa Cruz, California with her husband and two daughters. Lisa wrote this about her inspiration for The Tortoise Survives the Fire: My seven year old daughter has a voice for our cat—when we hear this voice, we in the family know it is the cat talking. I have a similar voice for the cat, also for a horse I keep out in a barn in the country. It’s funny to me how we understand the animals in our lives this way: by the narratives we improvise when we watch them. Someday, you should go to the zoo and look at the tortoises; I swear, you will open your mouth and their opinions will pour out.
Congratulations, Lisa!
Lisa Allen Ortiz's poem, The Tortoise Survives the Fire, from Crab Creek Review's Summer '09 issue is featured today on Verse Daily. You can read Lisa's poem here.
The poems of Lisa Allen Ortiz have appeared in Zyzzyva, Comstock Review and Literary Mama among other places. She lives in Santa Cruz, California with her husband and two daughters. Lisa wrote this about her inspiration for The Tortoise Survives the Fire: My seven year old daughter has a voice for our cat—when we hear this voice, we in the family know it is the cat talking. I have a similar voice for the cat, also for a horse I keep out in a barn in the country. It’s funny to me how we understand the animals in our lives this way: by the narratives we improvise when we watch them. Someday, you should go to the zoo and look at the tortoises; I swear, you will open your mouth and their opinions will pour out.
Congratulations, Lisa!
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Verse Daily features "Wonder" by Kascha Semonovitch (from our current issue, Summer '09)
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Congratulations, Kascha!
You can read Kascha Semonovitch's poem, Wonder, here on Verse Daily. The current issue of Crab Creek Review (Summer '09) features this poem along with two other poems by Kascha.
Kascha Semonovitch is completing an MFA in poetry at the Warren Wilson College and a PhD in philosophy at Boston College. Meanwhile, she teaches philosophy at Seattle University. Her work has or will appear in the Kenyon Review, Broome Review and Tar Wolf Review.
When asked about the inspiration behind Wonder, Kascha wrote, I have been thinking about hospitality and how we encounter the unfamiliar--human, divine or animal. In Wonder, I take up that theme directly.
Congratulations, Kascha!
You can read Kascha Semonovitch's poem, Wonder, here on Verse Daily. The current issue of Crab Creek Review (Summer '09) features this poem along with two other poems by Kascha.
Kascha Semonovitch is completing an MFA in poetry at the Warren Wilson College and a PhD in philosophy at Boston College. Meanwhile, she teaches philosophy at Seattle University. Her work has or will appear in the Kenyon Review, Broome Review and Tar Wolf Review.
When asked about the inspiration behind Wonder, Kascha wrote, I have been thinking about hospitality and how we encounter the unfamiliar--human, divine or animal. In Wonder, I take up that theme directly.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Crab Creek Review Co-Editor Wins White Pine Press Poetry Prize
Crab Creek Review's Co-Editor, Kelli Russell Agodon, has won the White Pine Press Poetry Prize for her manuscript, Letters From the Emily Dickinson Room.
Kelli's collection was chosen by guest judge, Carl Dennis, from over 500 poetry manuscripts.
Letters From the Emily Dickinson Room will be published in October 2010. Kelli is also the author of Small Knots (2004) and Geography, winner of the 2003 Floating Bridge Press Chapbook Award. Visit Kelli's website here.
White Pine Press is a non-profit literary publisher, established in 1973, which publishes poetry, fiction, essays, and literature in translation from around the world. For the past thirty years they have been at the forefront in bringing the rich diversity of world literature to the English speaking audience. White Pine Press seeks to enrich our literary heritage; to promote the cultural awareness, understanding, and respect so vital in out rapidly changing world; and to address complex social and human rights issues through literature.
Congratulations, Kelli, from all of us on the Crab Creek Review staff! You are both an incredible editor and a talented poet and we can't wait to read your new collection!
Visit White Pine Press here and learn more about Kelli's upcoming book. We will keep you updated on Letters From the Emily Dickinson Room , so check back often.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Crab Creek Review's Summer '09 Issue is Available!
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Summer '09 is hot off the press! This issue is filled with some exceptional poetry and fiction (including Anne McDuffie's interview with notable Seattle poet, Madeline DeFrees) and features the beautiful cover art, Girl in a Green Room, by Emily Ruch. Two other works of visual art by Emily are also featured in the journal.
You can purchase your copy of Summer '09 here.
The poets/writers in Summer '09: Paul David Adkins, Judith Arcana, Nick Bacon, Kimberly L. Becker, Ashley Chow, Madeline DeFrees, Maya Ganesan, Ann Gerike, Ann Batchelor Hursey, Vyacheslav Kiktenko (translated by Jamie L. Olson), Eric Lee, Marjorie Manwaring, Chad Marsh, Tod Marshall, Buzz Mauro, Anne McDuffie, James McKean, January Gill O'Neil, Lisa Allen Ortiz, Alison Pelegrin, Fernando Perez, Paul S. Piper, Joseph Powell, Shann Ray, Shannon Robinson, Emily Ruch, Kascha Semonovitch, Joannie Kervran Stangeland, Katerina Stoykova-Klemer, Gail White, and Jill Crammond Wickham.
Here's a snippet from our Editors' Note:
As we read through the submissions for our Summer ’09 issue, we were struck by a consistent theme that echoed through each piece of work—struggle. The writers in this issue represent a variety of backgrounds in terms of culture, age, and writing experience, yet all of their work engages us in the struggle with life’s inherent difficulties, whether political, social, interpersonal, or philosophical. One of our editors jokingly referred to Summer ’09 as the “corpse issue” because many of the pieces deal with mortality and serious global concerns, but we believe the writing in this issue is ultimately an affirmation of the resilience of the human spirit.
Among the voices you will discover in this issue are two veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, an eleven year old girl, a ninety year old poet who is still publishing new work, several NEA winners, and a first time published high school teacher. We are proud to feature distinguished, established writers and several amazing emerging writers whose work impressed us. . .
Thank you to all of our contributors in this issue--it is an honor for us to publish your work.
.
Summer '09 is hot off the press! This issue is filled with some exceptional poetry and fiction (including Anne McDuffie's interview with notable Seattle poet, Madeline DeFrees) and features the beautiful cover art, Girl in a Green Room, by Emily Ruch. Two other works of visual art by Emily are also featured in the journal.
You can purchase your copy of Summer '09 here.
The poets/writers in Summer '09: Paul David Adkins, Judith Arcana, Nick Bacon, Kimberly L. Becker, Ashley Chow, Madeline DeFrees, Maya Ganesan, Ann Gerike, Ann Batchelor Hursey, Vyacheslav Kiktenko (translated by Jamie L. Olson), Eric Lee, Marjorie Manwaring, Chad Marsh, Tod Marshall, Buzz Mauro, Anne McDuffie, James McKean, January Gill O'Neil, Lisa Allen Ortiz, Alison Pelegrin, Fernando Perez, Paul S. Piper, Joseph Powell, Shann Ray, Shannon Robinson, Emily Ruch, Kascha Semonovitch, Joannie Kervran Stangeland, Katerina Stoykova-Klemer, Gail White, and Jill Crammond Wickham.
Here's a snippet from our Editors' Note:
As we read through the submissions for our Summer ’09 issue, we were struck by a consistent theme that echoed through each piece of work—struggle. The writers in this issue represent a variety of backgrounds in terms of culture, age, and writing experience, yet all of their work engages us in the struggle with life’s inherent difficulties, whether political, social, interpersonal, or philosophical. One of our editors jokingly referred to Summer ’09 as the “corpse issue” because many of the pieces deal with mortality and serious global concerns, but we believe the writing in this issue is ultimately an affirmation of the resilience of the human spirit.
Among the voices you will discover in this issue are two veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, an eleven year old girl, a ninety year old poet who is still publishing new work, several NEA winners, and a first time published high school teacher. We are proud to feature distinguished, established writers and several amazing emerging writers whose work impressed us. . .
Thank you to all of our contributors in this issue--it is an honor for us to publish your work.
An Evening with A River and Sound Review
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Crab Creek Review Staff with Madeline DeFrees and Anne McDuffie (from left to right: Anne McDuffie, Madeline DeFrees, Nancy Canyon, Carol Levin, Lana Hechtman Ayers, Annette Spaulding-Convy, Jennifer Culkin, Kelli Russell Agodon, and Ronda Broatch).
A River and Sound Review's founder and host for the evening, Jay Bates.
Crab Creek Review joined A River and Sound Review's live performance on Oct. 8th at Richard Hugo House in Seattle for the release of our Summer '09 Issue. We enjoyed an evening of poetry, music, humor, and interviews hosted by A River and Sound Review's Jay Bates, Michael Schmeltzer, and Julie Case.
Special thanks to our readers: Ann Batchelor Hursey, Kate Lebo, and Joannie Kervran Stangeland. And special thanks to Anne McDuffie for her wonderful on stage interview with Madeline DeFrees, who will be turning 90 in November! We also enjoyed the incredible music of Andrea Wittgens (her CDs are available here).
Thanks to Hugo House and to the great Cabaret Cafe staff who invented a cocktail for the evening called, "The Crab Walk."
The performance will be posted soon (podcast) on A River and Sound Review's website, so please visit and download this musical and literary show. And we owe Jay and Michael a huge thank you for organizing the event.
Look for more photos of the performance to be posted soon on our website.
Crab Creek Review Staff with Madeline DeFrees and Anne McDuffie (from left to right: Anne McDuffie, Madeline DeFrees, Nancy Canyon, Carol Levin, Lana Hechtman Ayers, Annette Spaulding-Convy, Jennifer Culkin, Kelli Russell Agodon, and Ronda Broatch).
A River and Sound Review's founder and host for the evening, Jay Bates.Crab Creek Review joined A River and Sound Review's live performance on Oct. 8th at Richard Hugo House in Seattle for the release of our Summer '09 Issue. We enjoyed an evening of poetry, music, humor, and interviews hosted by A River and Sound Review's Jay Bates, Michael Schmeltzer, and Julie Case.
Special thanks to our readers: Ann Batchelor Hursey, Kate Lebo, and Joannie Kervran Stangeland. And special thanks to Anne McDuffie for her wonderful on stage interview with Madeline DeFrees, who will be turning 90 in November! We also enjoyed the incredible music of Andrea Wittgens (her CDs are available here).
Thanks to Hugo House and to the great Cabaret Cafe staff who invented a cocktail for the evening called, "The Crab Walk."
The performance will be posted soon (podcast) on A River and Sound Review's website, so please visit and download this musical and literary show. And we owe Jay and Michael a huge thank you for organizing the event.
Look for more photos of the performance to be posted soon on our website.
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