I could see a
collaborative book-project developing organically--chapter by chapter. We have
the grand scheme in our heads from the beginning--where we want to go, what our
intentions are (as we are stating here and below), but we are open to changes
as the work develops. I think there is great potential in such a project! It
could keep us busy for a year or more and add something significant to the
intellectual/artistic/political conversation of these times! What do you think of such a scheme for a
book?
Postnikov: I wonder if we could compile a concise collection of
articles/essays of some prominent Russian/US authors that spoke of a
liaison of art, politics and
environment? For example, it could be Blok, Snyder, Jeffers, Lowenfels,
etc. We could make a contribution, too.
C: Yes! That's just what
I'm thinking about!
P: There are four dangers
that I've discerned in other collections that I want to avoid:
1) being too academic;
2) containing almost exclusively anglo-american authors; 3) the exclusion of
politics; 4) being too voluminous.
C: Your reservations/cautions
match my own! I also want to avoid being
"too academic." (Some academic
underpinning would be okay but not too much.)
We want a book with broad appeal--and we want to get out of the often
exclusionary "anglo-american" bandwidth!
We definitely want to deal with politics! I agree with Aristotle that "man is a political
animal!" (Women, too, of course!) It just means, we play power games, figure
out our place in the hierarchy. " And, btw, if I start getting too
"voluminous," you can bop me on the head!
And I'll do the same to you!
P: Okay! It's a deal!
Another
take could be an anthology of Russian/US political verse. I wonder if such an anthology has ever been
tried? I have only one small book that
meets such criteria: Poets of Today, a New American Anthology, edited by
Walter Lowenfels (Seven Seas Publishers, Berlin, 1966). As for the latest anthology of Modern
American Poetry that I saw recently (in Russian translation, published in
Moscow by OGI), edited by April Linder (2007), and a parallel Modern Russian
Poetry published by Dalkey Archive, in the framework of a joint project--I can't
say anything very positive. The
deficiency of the book (not even mentioning the awkward and heavy edition) is
the absence of a unified idea!
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