Books automatic translate
"Yesterday is a teacher with today." The results of the readers’ vote in the Big Book
MOSCOW. The winner of the reading of the Big Book has been named.
"Literary Argish" in the northernmost city in the world
NORILSK. The festival "Literary Argish" ended.
“Five Flights Up” by Elizabeth Bishop
“Five Flights Up” is a lyrical, narrative poem by the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Elizabeth Bishop. The poem is a lyric because it’s short and slender and features hints of personal emotion, and it’s a narrative because it tells the story of a dog and a bird. “Five Flights Up” is a part of Bishop’s poetry collection “Geography III” (1976)—the last book Bishop published before her death in 1979. Although the poem isn’t as famous as some of her other poems, like “The Fish” (1946) or “One Art” (1976), “Five Flights Up” reflects Bishop’s signature messages and ideas; it presents a nuanced portrayal of the world and a speaker subsumed by what they’re witnessing. As with Bishop’s other work, the poem demonstrates how subtle or ordinary sights and sounds—in this case, a dog and a bird—can lead to intoxicating observations and thoughts. In his book-length study on Bishop, “On Elizabeth Bishop” (Princeton University Press, 2015), the distinguished Irish writer Colm Tóibín says Bishop wrote with a “hushed, solitary concentration”. That quiet, singular focus is on display in “Five Flights Up”, and the intense absorption could be why Bishop famously published only around 100 poems in her lifetime. Besides poetry, Bishop published essays, short stories, translations, and a travel book about Brazil. Poet Biography Elizabeth Bishop was born February 8, 1911, in Worcester, Massachusetts. Her dad, William, came from a prominent family. His dad was a wealthy contractor and supervised the construction of notable buildings like the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. William, who had Bright’s disease, died when Elizabeth was eight months old. Her mom, Gertrude, was an ice skater and trained to be a nurse. She had mental health conditions and, while at Boston’s Deaconess Hospital for treatment, she jumped out a second-story window. It fell on family members to raise Bishop. She didn’t have a pleasant childhood. She dealt with asthma and other ailments, but she enjoyed reading and school. In 1930, Bishop enrolled in the prestigious women’s college Vassar where she, along with other students—like the famous novelist Mary McCarthy—started a literary journal, “Con Spirito”. While at Vassar, Bishop met the established American Modernist poet, Marianne Moore. A critical influence on Bishop, Moore helped Bishop publish and gain crucial recognition. Later, Bishop became close friends with the Confessional poet Robert Lowell. Although Bishop had some income due to her wealthy family, Lowell helped Bishop supplement her income by getting her grants and teaching appointments. Bishop and Lowell had much in common. They both experienced alcoholism, mental health conditions, and stormy love lives. In her biography of Bishop, “A Miracle for Breakfast” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017), Megan Marshall writes, “Elizabeth was never one to join the cause of sexual liberation or to identify herself publicly as a lesbian”. Yet Elizabeth was attracted to women and maintained loving, romantic relationships with women throughout her life. In 1946, Bishop published her book “North & South”. From 1949 to 1950, Bishop was the Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress—an august position now known as Poet Laureate. The post required Bishop to live in Washington, DC, which she didn’t enjoy. What Bishop liked was travel. She visited Mexico, Africa, and Europe. In 1951, she traveled to Brazil. After a debilitating allergic reaction to cashews. Maria Carlota Costellat de Macedo Soares (Lota), a member of an influential Brazilian family, helped Bishop recover. The two women fell in love, and they lived together in Brazil for almost 15 years. In 1955, Bishoped published “Poems”. The book combined her first book, “North & South” , out of print at the time, and her new poems, collected as “A Cold Spring”. The book won the Pulitzer Prize in 1956. In 1961, Lota started to oversee the construction of a large public park and entertainment project in Rio. Lota’s new job and the political turmoil in Brazil strained their relationship. In 1965, Bishop published her third collection of poetry, “Questions of Travel”. A year later, Bishop took a teaching position at the University of Washington and began a romantic relationship with a 23-year-old pregnant, married woman, Roxanne Cumming. Meanwhile, the demands of the public project put Lota’s physical and mental health in jeopardy. In 1967, Lota visited Bishop in New York, where she died after overdosing on Valium. Bishop and Cumming continued their relationship, living in San Francisco and Brazil. In 1969, Bishop published “The Complete Poems” , which won the National Book Award in 1970. Reviewing “The Complete Poems” for “The New York Times Book Review” in June 1969, the distinguished American poet John Ashbery called Bishop “a poet of strange, even mysterious, but undeniable and great gifts”. In 1970, “The New Yorker” hired Bishop to review poetry, but Bishop never published a review. With help from Lowell, Bishop earned a teaching position at Harvard, becoming the first woman to teach creative writing at the eminent university.
"I am writing everything except denunciations." On the anniversary of Eugene Schwartz
KIROV. In Kirov, Eugene Schwartz was remembered.
“"Faith" is a fine invention” by Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson was born on December 10, 1830, in Amherst, Massachusetts. She had an older brother, Austin, and a younger sister, Lavinia or “Vinnie”. Samuel Fowler Dickinson was her grandpa and, according to Cynthia Wolff’s biography “Dickinson” (Alfred A. Knopf, 1986), Dickinson’s grandpa built Amherst’s first brick house. He was also a prominent lawyer and politician who helped found Amherst Academy and Amherst College. Samuel’s son and Dickinson’s father, Edward, was the treasurer of Amherst College from 1835-1837. Edward was also a successful lawyer and politician. Dickinson’s mom, Emily Norcross, was a homemaker who came from a thriving family of farmers. Dickinson attended two prestigious schools, Amherst Academy and the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary. As an adolescent and young woman, Dickinson maintained an active social life. She liked parties, sleigh rides, exploring nature, and entertained a few romantic interests. In Martha Ackerman’s biography about Dickinson, “These Fevered Days” (W. W. Norton & Company, 2020), Ackerman quotes a letter from Dickinson playfully appraising her appearance. Writing to a friend, Dickinson says, “I am growing handsome very fast indeed [and] expect I shall be the Belle of Amherst when I reach my 17th year”. After returning from the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, Dickinson became less social. She lived with her parents and didn’t like meeting people face to face. Dickinson’s ostensible isolation has produced a variety of rumors and portrayals. Ackerman contests the depiction of Dickinson as an “eccentric spinster who locked herself away from the world”. Through letters, Dickinson stayed closely connected with the world. She had a robust correspondence with Josiah Holland and Samuel Bowels—editors of “The Springfield Republican” , the largest newspaper in New England at the time. She also exchanged many letters with Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who published in “The” “Atlantic Monthly” , and, during the Civil War, led a regiment of Black Union soldiers. Dickinson also shared a deep connection with her sister-in-law (Austin’s wife) Susan Gilbert, and their close bond has led to speculation about Dickinson’s sexual orientation. The film “Wild Nights with Emily” (2018), the TV show “Dickinson” (2019-2021), and Paul Legault’s English-to-English translations of Dickinson’s poems, “The Emily Dickinson Reader” (McSweeney’s, 2012), present the relationship as explicitly sexual. Dickinson never married and, because of her family’s financial situation, she never had to work. Besides writing letters, she wrote around 1,800 poems. She wrote them on envelopes, bills, and scraps of paper. The poems are hard to read and possess neither titles nor dates. She sent some of them to Higginson, who was lukewarm about the style and syntax. To organize them, Dickinson copied several of her poems into homemade books. After Dickinson died in 1886, Vinnie discovered a locked box of Dickinson’s work. Susan declined to help Vinnie publish the poems. Mabel Loomis Todd—a writer, artist, and scholar who had an extended affair with Austin—eventually transcribed and edited over 600 Dickinson poems. Like many other editors, Todd tried to make Dickinson’s poems more accessible. She replaced Dickinson’s jarring dashes with commas and standardized her capitalization. A thorough and accurate publication of Dickson’s work would have to wait until 1955. Thomas Johnson edited this compendium. He numbered Dickinson’s poems based on the order in which he believed she wrote them. He assigned the poem “‘Faith’ is a fine invention” number 185. Decades later, Ralph W. Franklin published what many believe to be the most authoritative version of Dickinson’s poems. He assigned “‘Faith’ is a fine invention” number 202. Poem Text “Faith” is a fine invention
"White Spot" on the literary map of Novosibirsk
NOVOSIBIRSK. In the capital of Siberia, the literary festival "White Spot" has ended.
Livebook / Gayatri publishes Andersen’s literary guide to fairy tales
MOSCOW. The dream to be in a fairy tale has become a reality. Revived Andersen’s tales.
Results of the X book culture fair and the shortlist of the NOS Prize
KRASNOYARSK. At the end of the anniversary crack, they named the finalists of the literary prize "NOS".
"I will not say a word to my Lord, only" Hallelujah "
LOS ANGELES. Leonard Cohen passed away.
Goncourt Prize awarded for psychological thriller
PARIS. Leyla Slimani received the Goncourt Prize for the novel about the nanny killer.
Poems by Osip Mandelstam
Osip Emilievich Mandelstam was born in Warsaw, when it was still part of the Russian Empire, in 1891. In an effort to avoid rampant anti-Semitism, Mandelstam moved to St. Petersburg, and life in the heart of the Russian Empire brought him into contact with the Russian symbolist movement.
A priceless collection of manuscripts, letters, photographs of Brodsky will now be stored at Stanford
STANFORD. The extensive archive of Joseph Brodsky was bought by the Hoover Institute.
Yasnaya Polyana honored its winners at the Bolshoi Theater
MOSCOW. The results of the XIV Prize "Yasnaya Polyana" have been summed up.
Murakami called for peaceful coexistence with his shadow
ODESSA. Haruki Murakami received the Andersen Award in Denmark.
Booker Prize awarded for politically incorrect satire
LONDON. Paul Beatty is the new Booker Prize laureate.