Thursday, May 17, 2007

Tambourine

Here's a poem of mine, just published in Literary Imagination: "Tambourine."
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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

After reading your new poem, Tambourine,
I read up on Osip Mandelstam (on Wikipedia,
of course!) finding resonances there for
some tidbits from your poem:
goldfinch was one such;
death by unspecified illness
(lice? typhus?) was another.
Another resonance was much more general ...
the Wikipedia write-up quoted O.M. saying
something like "Where else but in the USSR
is poetry SO respected that poets can get
KILLED for what they write?"

I'd like to read more about/by Mandelstam,
and -- thanks to Wikipedia -- I know to look
for the two memoir(?) volumes written by his
wife/widow. Probably a good starting place!
And -- thanks to "Tambourine" -- I know
to ask YOU to recommend a "first" volume
of his poetry (in English translation, please!)
as my "next step" in THAT direction ...
please-and-thank-you!

-- dhsh

PS: Using a link provided on the Literary
Imagination page, I found "other articles
by AShields" including this one ...
sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/295/5552/102
... which even has your middle initial "right"!

5:05 PM
Andrew Shields said...

My poem was inspired by Ralph Dutli's German biography of Mandelstam, which is unfortunately not available in English.

In fact, most of the Mandelstam I have read is in German, so I am at a loss to recommend English versions. I'll post a call for suggestions.

5:26 PM
Unknown said...

A powerful poem--thanks for posting the link (and for writing it!).

It's a cool magazine, too--I think I'll ask my library to subscribe.

Best,
K

6:15 PM

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