Gennadij Ajgi

Gennadij Ajgi Poems

Gennadij Ajgi Biography

Gennadiy Nikolaevich Aygi (Russian: Генна́дий Никола́евич Айги́; IPA: [ɡʲɪˈnadʲɪj nʲɪkɐˈlajɪvʲɪtɕ ɐjˈɡʲi] ( listen), Chuvash: Геннадий Николаевич Айхи; 21 August 1934 – 21 February 2006 in Moscow) was a Chuvash poet and a translator. His poetry is written both in Chuvash and in Russian. He was born in the village of Shaimurzino (Çĕnyal), Chuvashia (USSR), moved to Moscow in 1953 and stayed there for the rest of his life. Aygi started writing poetry in the Chuvash language in 1958. Among the recognitions he has won are the Andrey Bely Prize (1987), the Pasternak Prize (2000, the first to be awarded this), the Prize of the French Academy (1972), the Petrarch Prize (1993), the Golden Wreath of the Struga Poetry Evenings in 1994 and the Jan Smrek Prize (Bratislava, Slovakia). Sofia Gubaidulina set several of his poems to music in her cycle Jetzt immer Schnee ("Now always snow"). His son Aleksey Aygi is a composer.)

The Best Poem Of Gennadij Ajgi

And: The One-Ravine

to the memory of Krysztof Baczynski

1
this tranquillity
wind over the ravine by-People-called-shamelessly-Ravine
and at last the Super-dignity-Abyss - and simply such a calm
collapse-Dignity: there is nothing it signifies Unity (to this degree
to the moment
by talking to the end
wind
over the ravine)

2

wind
like breathing already with Nothing-and-No-one we say
spiritlikeness (likeness of a likeness)
of the Friend-depths-of-first-created-Auschwitz - of the all-human-
Thinker-with-trenches
wind
dream not dreamed to the end
sensing (and the soul like blood from a baby with banners tearing-
and-crying in wide-opening)
sensing-eating in endless dog-breathing
the crater of the ravine
the ravine
and only out of liquid-substance-"once-upon-a-time"
this inverse long-before-Someone (when already like a corpse over
everything the name
had stopped shining! - the absence
of traces shines - beyond that end-of-shining)
oh this
inverse
no less
Rain

3

oh quietness
I was not more shameless
with you quietness
but now even so with me
you quietness are like breathing
of light-immortally-high
of the spirit-of-Ash (in such true
beauty
now
you are
quietness)

4

wind
we have finished but from the ravine
shamefully but still like a flower
the wind like the babble of baby-Baczynski (here for you is a
flower-such-a-hieroglyph-of-super-perfection-trembling -
and now it has arrived like the wound of the child in its
subtlety shameless)
wind
over the ravine
they have finished
even brandings of perfection of shining to grasses and birds teeth-of-
perfections-of-Humanity-of-god-long-ago-Selfeaters
and even some
sign
to the wind
through Emptiness itself
cannot be drilled home or sparked off
end-of-shining
has covered: and there is no name
of-what-or-of-whom-That-now-to-give-a-name-to-is-empty-and-late! -
of that: in closed setting aside!)
only bones are shining not light of eyes over the face!) and a kind
of endlessness
without-dots-and-dividing
of shamelessness in ultimate subtlety
tearing-Something-tearing - and more and more subtly! - they have
finished - wind over the ravine
they have finished
wind
over the ravine

1984


Translated from Russian by Peter France

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