Salute to Singing

Nominated several times for the Nobel Prize for Literature, winner of a number of international literary prizes, and translated into over twenty languages, Gennady Aygi is regarded as one of the most important Russian poets of the second half of the 20th century. He is a poet of the country and stands totally against the classical tradition of Russian poetry from Pushkin to Brodsky. -Poetry London Newsletter

Gennady Aygi is considered to be a major and original voice in contemporary poetry. Aygi’s poetry is a curious hybrid, influenced by Russian Symbolism and Futurism, European Modernism, and his Chuvash culture with its ancient pagan religion. -Journal of European Studies

Peter France’s scrupulous versions are faithful not simply to the often ambiguous sense of the originals, but also to the typographical minutiae … which spell out the exclamations, questionings, pauses, vulnerabilities and praises of this most remarkable poet. -Times Literary Supplement

These variations on folkloric themes are born out of the Chuvash and Turkic motifs that Aygi grew up with, and which Aygi and France have collected in their work on Chuvash poetry. A Turkic language, Chuvash is spoken by about a million and a half people in and around Chuvashia-formerly an autonomous republic of the USSR-located 500 miles east of Moscow. Now in his 60s, Aygi continues to be celebrated as the Chuvash national poet, and as a major poet of the Russian language.

1. The birch’s rustle - like a whispered goodbye,
   and above it
   a solitary swift-
   like falling scissors.

Gennady Aygi and Peter France have collaborated on numerous books, including Gennady Aygi: Selected Poems 1954-94 (translated by Peter France), and An Anthology of Chuvash Poetry (compiled by Gennady Aygi and translated by Peter France).