A collection of essays and poems inspired by a life in art, Aygi’s work is impressive in its international scope and deep devotion to the ideal of a poetry that Peter France describes as ’essentially communication, creating communities of people who could share a vision.’ Aygi writes with passion and insight.

Publishers Weekly

A collection of extraordinary essays by one of the seminal Russian poets of the twentieth century

Time of Gratitude

Literature by Gennady Aygi

Translated from Russian by Peter France

Gennady Aygi’s longtime translator and friend Peter France has compiled this moving collection of tributes dedicated to some of the writers and artists who sustained him while living in the Moscow “underground.” Written in a quiet intensely expressive poetic style, Aygi’s inventive essays blend autobiography with literary criticism, social commentary, nature writing, and enlightening homage. He addresses such literary masters as Pasternak, Kafka, Mayakovsky, Celan, and Tomas Tranströmer, along with other writers from the Russian avant-garde and his native Chuvashia. Related poems by Aygi are also threaded between the essays. Reminiscent of Mandelstam’s elliptical travel musings and Kafka’s intensely spiritual jottings in his notebooks, Time of Gratitude glows with the love and humanity of a sacred vocation. “These leaves of paper,” Aygi says, “are swept up by the whirlwind of festivity; everything whirls—from Earth to Heaven—and perhaps the Universe too begins to swirl. Everything flows together in the rainbow colors and lights of the infinite world of Poetry.”

Paperback(published Dec, 12 2017)

ISBN
9780811227193
Price US
16.95
Price CN
22.95
Trim Size
5.1875x8
Page Count
144

Ebook(published Dec, 12 2017)

ISBN
9780811227209
Portrait of Gennady Aygi

Gennady Aygi

20th century poet and translator of both Russian and Chuvash

A collection of essays and poems inspired by a life in art, Aygi’s work is impressive in its international scope and deep devotion to the ideal of a poetry that Peter France describes as ’essentially communication, creating communities of people who could share a vision.’ Aygi writes with passion and insight.

Publishers Weekly

Warmth and passion infuse this collection of Aygi’s poetry and prose.

Kirkus Reviews

Aygi’s vision is essentially ecstatic, even salvific. It was Aygi who referred to the free-verse lyric as ‘a kind of unrepeatable temple.’ His verse constitutes an argument for aesthetic and affective scale, a lyric ripple or tremor in the fabric of the language and the sensual life: individual, collective, planetary….

G.C. Waldrep, West Branch

This collection of poetry and verse-infused prose from the celebrated Russian and Chuvash poet bows to the writers and artists who kept him creatively inspired during the Soviet era.

Bret Stephens, New York Times Book Review

Illuminating.

Artsfuse