"Untitled"
Semyon Khanin
why did I keep yelling I'm an electrician
I'm no electrician
what came over me
I gestured at outlets
cozied up to the circuit box, held the meter close
no one is buying it
here's my license, look, my certificate
wires sticking out of all my pockets
they just look at me in silence
give me five minutes and I'll close any circuit
I'll get soldering you won't be able to stop me
what kind of people are you
they shake their heads doubtfully
we can't use you, they say
we need an electrician
Translation from the Russian
By Kevin M. F. Platt, Julia Bloch, and Karina Sotnik
Semyon Khanin was born in Riga, Latvia, in 1970. He is the author of two collections of poetry in Russian, Tol'ko chto (2003; Just now) and Opushchennye podrobnosti (2008; Missed details). His poetry has been translated into Latvian, English, Czech, German, Italian, Swedish, Estonian, and Ukranian. He is a participant in the literary project Orbita and editor of the almanac by the same name.
For a biographical profile of Kevin M. F. Platt, see Poetry in the Cloud: An Experiment, Results, and n+1 Hypotheses.
Julia Bloch is Assistant Professor at the Bard College MAT program in Delano, California, and an editor of the online poetics journal Jacket2. She grew up in northern California and Sydney, Australia, and received her PhD in English literature at the University of Pennsylvania. Her book Letters to Kelly Clarkson is forthcoming from Sidebrow Books; she has published poems recently in Aufgabe, P-Queue, and Peacock Online Review.
Karina Sotnik was born in Riga in 1965. In addition to her translation activity, she works in the high-tech industry as a consultant for international business development. She also imports linen products from the Baltic region to the United States and designed her own line of children's bed linens, Linu Baby.
November 2011
In this issue of WLT, a special section devoted to Post-Soviet Literature features recent work from Russia and other former republics, twenty years after the collapse of the regime.
Table of Contents
COVER FEATURE
Post-Soviet Literature: Twenty Years
After the Fall
- INTRO: "Twenty Years after the Collapse of the Soviet Union: Russian and East European Literature Today," Emily D. Johnson
- ESSAY: "Censorship in Russia: Old and New Faces," Nadezhda Azhgikhina
- ESSAY: "Poetry in the Cloud: An Experiment, Results, and n+1 Hypotheses," Kevin M. F. Platt
- Poetry by Igor Belov, Semyon Khanin, Artur Punte, Feodor Swarovski, Sergej Timofejev, Viktor Ivaniv, and Ksenia Shcherbinio
- FICTION: "Petrov and Markov," Oleg Woolf
- ESSAY: "Re-Visioning the Past: Russian Literary Classics in Film," Catharine Nepomnyashchy
- POETRY: "The Rock or, A Third Anecdote about Wallace Stevens," Grigory Kruzhkov
- EXCERPT: The Button, Iren Rozdobudko
READING LIST: WLT's post-Soviet reading list- New! VIDEO: Multimedia poetry from Orbita 4
SPECIAL SECTION
Zoran Živković
- "Zoran Živković: A Biographical Sketch," Michael Morrison
- "Rendezvous in Front of the House," Zoran Živković
- "The Metaphysical Fantasias of Zoran Živković," Michael Morrison
- FICTION: "The Teashop," Zoran Živković
- INTERVIEW: "Fantastika and the Literature of Serbia: A Conversation with Zoran Živković," Michael A. Morrison
- A Bibliography of the Works of Zoran Živković
INTERVIEWS
- "My Life as Cinema: A Conversation with Samuel Shimon," Kaitlin Hawkins
- "Literary Cairo, A Conversation with Samia Mehrez," Michelle Johnson
ESSAYS
FICTION
- "The Demon of Hunger," Tania Malyarchuk
- "Shiki Nagaoka: A Nose for Fiction," Mario Bellatin
POETRY
- Three Poems by Askold Bazhanov
- Two Poems, Alistair Noon
IN EVERY ISSUE
- LETTERS/EDITOR'S CHOICE
- BOOK CLUB: An Iraqi in Paris by Samuel Shimon
- AUTHOR PROFILE: Zoe Whittall
- WHAT TO READ NOW: Zimbabwe
- CITY PROFILE: Yerevan, Armenia
- INTERNATIONAL CRIME & MYSTERY: Meet "Bo from Ro": Building Romanian Crime Writing, J. Madison Davis
- OUTPOST: Los Angeles
