In Translation, March 26

Another one of the evocative pop-up events, like the mushrooms themselves, at Collar City Mushrooms, billed as “a poetry presentation in multiple languages,” centered on a reading by Ukrainian poet Natalya Sukhonos, with an open mic — how could I resist? I’ve studied & dabbled in a few languages in my life but have never become fluent in any other than English (& profane) to be able to translate poems. But it was an opportunity to hear other community poets & meet others who up up until today were strangers.

Our host & the proprietor of the mushroom farm, Avery Stempel began approriatlely enough with a mushroom poem, “My Partner,” in the voice/persona of a tree in appreciation for its mushrooms.

I read my poem titled “Kadinsky’s Red Spot” that began in the Guggenheim Museum at an exhibit of paintings by Wassily Kadinsky (1866 - 1944), that was later translated by Inna Ehrlich Ph.D. into Russian, then even later transformed in a workshop with Bernadette Mayer through a Google Translate of Dr. Ehrlich’s translation, then my re-write based on the Google translation from the Russian; I rarely have anyone available to read the Russian version, but today that was done by Natalya.

Amber Jackson, who had read in another event here back in February read a poem in Irish & in English titled “Sensitive Spring.” 

I hadn’t heard Peter Monaco read out in a poetry event in a number of years, but here he was; he talked about his long-range project the “Hudson Valley Paranormal Vortex Blues” that he described as “not necessarily poetry,” sang based on John Cale’s “Paris 1919,” a song & a story for Albany (& the paranormal presence of Charles Fort (1874 - 1932), buried in Albany Rural Cemetery).

Johnathan read 2 poems about names. Freya read a memoir piece in the voice of her step-mother, who is a memoirist. 

The next reader was Ian Ross Singleton, who is married to Natalya Sukhonos. He read a poem by a woman Ukrainian poet who wrote the poem in Russian, he read the Russian text then his English translation, a triumphant piece “Life’s More Enduring than War.” Then a poem of resistance written in Ukrainian, reading it first in Ukrainian, then English, “This Is Still Us.”

The featured reader was Natalya Sukhonos who began with poems written in English from her book A Stranger Home (Moon Pie Press, 2020). “Holodormor” was dedicated to her grandmother, the title refers to the famine imposed by Russia in 1932 - 1933 to exterminate the Ukrainian people; next was a poem about her father from Odessa titled “Lost in the Stars;” then a memory of her mother titled “Specter Garden” & another to her mother about a painting “Night Sky #16 by Viga Celmins.” Then she read from her phone newer work, on the theme of translation, poems inspired by others' poems in Ukrainian, one titled “My Lover My Home My Earth,” another about her grandfather & a trip in a car, one on her own life & based on a poem by Elizabeth Bishop, one titled “The Goddess of Winter,” & ended with a poem about their new home in Delmar, “Space.”

It is such a thrill to be surprised by poetry & poets I did not know before & there were a lot of surprises here today among the mushrooms. Check out Collar City Mushrooms on Facebook for other events — & surprises.