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bookishmillennial's review against another edition
dark
emotional
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
fast-paced
coriandercilantro's review against another edition
5.0
A masterclass in an economy of language. Not a word or line wasted. Despite the brevity of each poem, it manages to be slow and meditative. Excellent work.
greeniezona's review against another edition
reflective
medium-paced
4.75
These poems were written by a Kazakhstani poet and the translations are offered alongside the Russian originals. The collection includes a lovely note from the translator (I love a good translator's note!) and even better, notes in the back for when a certain level of wordplay was lost in translation, or explaining context and references. Poetry in translation is always tricky, but I like how they presented this here.
The poems in this collection are short, accretions of tiny but precise images, observations. I found the effect to be kind of dreamlike/meditative, and I really took my time with these poems, reading just a handful at a time before taking a break. There were a few times where I stopped and really tried to figure out if there was some wider context/commentary to these poems that I was missing, but I think these are just a series of moments, most of them very easily relatable.
An excerpt from one of my favorites to illustrate:
Rain over a keyboard of leaves.
A freshwater sea overflowed galoshes.
Clumps of earth grew into hooves.
Heads crowned with rainbow-haloes.
We groan tenderly with watersoaked songs.
I picked this collection up mostly to fill the Kazakhstan prompt for my Read Across Asia challenge, and I am very happy with this choice. Though I do feel like I learned more about Kazakhstan from the translator's note than from the poems themselves.
The poems in this collection are short, accretions of tiny but precise images, observations. I found the effect to be kind of dreamlike/meditative, and I really took my time with these poems, reading just a handful at a time before taking a break. There were a few times where I stopped and really tried to figure out if there was some wider context/commentary to these poems that I was missing, but I think these are just a series of moments, most of them very easily relatable.
An excerpt from one of my favorites to illustrate:
Rain over a keyboard of leaves.
A freshwater sea overflowed galoshes.
Clumps of earth grew into hooves.
Heads crowned with rainbow-haloes.
We groan tenderly with watersoaked songs.
I picked this collection up mostly to fill the Kazakhstan prompt for my Read Across Asia challenge, and I am very happy with this choice. Though I do feel like I learned more about Kazakhstan from the translator's note than from the poems themselves.
spacestationtrustfund's review against another edition
3.0
«Бумажная кожа» (бумажная, paper + кожа, skin)/"Paper-Thin Skin" by Aigerim Tazhi (ru: Айгерим Тажи; kk: Әйгерім Тәжі, Äygerim Täji). Translation by James Kates. Bilingual edition (English-Russian).
NB: I don't know why the summary says that Tazhi's poetry has been popular "both in Russia and internationally," considering that Tazhi is not Russian but Kazakhstani. She does write in Russian, but has been very clear about her personal identity:
NB: I don't know why the summary says that Tazhi's poetry has been popular "both in Russia and internationally," considering that Tazhi is not Russian but Kazakhstani. She does write in Russian, but has been very clear about her personal identity:
I live in Kazakhstan, but I was born in the Soviet era. We had a common country then, a common capital (Moscow), and the main language was Russian. So in school we were taught Russian, on the streets and at home we talked in Russian. I did not choose Russian language, and I did not evaluate it in terms of its attractiveness. It's just the language that I’ve spoken since childhood. [...] I do not write poems in the Kazakh language and do not translate myself. Generally, Kazakh and Russian are very different languages—in sound, in word-formation, and in the means of constructing sentences—although both Kazakh language and Russian use the Cyrillic alphabet. I speak Kazakh, and though I’m well acquainted with the Kazakh poetry, I write poetry only in Russian. That’s the situation.(Side note, something else interesting from her website:
Я же не перевожу стихи сама. В моем случае этим всегда занимаются профессиональные литературные переводчики. Вот им трудно. Конечно, нюансов очень много. На английский язык меня в основном переводит Джим Кейтс — опытный переводчик, бывший президент Ассоциации литературных переводчиков Америки. [...] Но даже при его опыте на перевод одного небольшого стихотворения уходит очень много времени. Ведь хочется, чтобы сохранился и ритм, и смысл, и игра слов. Сейчас немало людей, знающих иностранные языки, но для перевода поэзии важно, чтобы переводчик не только превосходно владел языком, но и имел большой литературный опыт. Мне в этом смысле повезло. И на английский, и на французский, и на армянский язык мои стихи переводили замечательные литературные переводчики, настоящие профессионалы, для которых язык перевода — родной.Can't say I disagree.)
dinara221b's review against another edition
5.0
Бумажная кожа - сборник невесомых, прозрачных (в лучшем смысле слова) стихотворений современной казахстанской поэтессы Айгерим Тажи. Если персонифицировать их в живое, то это был бы странник с бумажной кожей, смысл которого можно разглядеть по написанным словам. Но как только подойдешь ближе или рассмотришь бумажную кожу глубже, то сразу можно будет заметить миллионы мелких строк за основными строками, под или сверху них или даже вокруг.
Определенно нужно перечитывать, чтобы уловить все видимые и невидимые узоры из слов.
Определенно нужно перечитывать, чтобы уловить все видимые и невидимые узоры из слов.
aliensupersoldier's review against another edition
5.0
Oh, boy... There's no way I can write a review this book deserves without reading it again. I'll just say this: it made me homesick.
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