Born in 1947 in Moscow, Lev Rubinstein worked as a librarian while he took part in the Russian literary underground, a job that at least partly inspired his use of the note card as poetic medium. Rubinstein's central importance to the Russian avant-garde, and his artistic affinities with international experimental poetry, make him an essential figure both to Russian and to world poetry; that he has been translated into German, French, Swedish, Polish, and English indicates the already-existing regard for his achievements.

Rubinstein's poetic texts are written on a series of note cards, often mirroring or distorting the various discourses of language. His poetic work reads--in his words--"at times like a realistic novel, at times like a dramatic play, at times like a lyric poem, etc., that is, it slides along the edges of genres and, like a small mirror, fleetingly reflects each of them, without identifying with any of them. This genre is, in essence, a hybrid genre, combining poetry, prose, drama, visual art, and performance." Rubinstein's work naturally invites multi-media interpretations; these "flash" renderings of his texts are but one rather successful permutation of his pliable work.

*Catalogue of Comedic Novelties: Selected Poems of Lev Rubinstein*, translated by Philip Metres and Tatiana Tulchinsky, is published by Ugly Duckling Presse in 2004 as part of the Eastern European Poets Series (#4). ISBN: 0-9727684-4-0

BlazeVOX is pleased to present these poems
in virtual note cards format

Life Everywhere

Here I am

Unnamed Events

The Hero Emerges

 

 

Philip Metres' poems and translations of Russian poets have
appeared in numerous journals and in Best American Poetry
(2002). His books include *A Kindred Orphanhood: Selected
Poems of Sergey Gandlevsky* (Zephyr 2003), *Catalogue of
Comedic Novelties: Selected Poems of Lev Rubinstein* (Ugly
Duckling 2004), and *Primer for Non-Native Speakers* (Kent
State 2004). He is an assistant professor of English at John
Carroll University, living in Cleveland, Ohio.

Tatiana Tulchinsky has translated and published numerous works
into Russian and into English, is currently completing the *Anthology
of Russian Verse, 18th- 20th century* with Gwenan Wilbur. In 1998,
she was awarded the AATTSEEL Prize for Best Translation from a Slavic
or East European Language for her work with Marvin Kantor on *Leo
Tolstoy’s Plays in Three Volumes* (Northwestern University Press).

\\ MORE on the web : online interview in english http://www.sputnik.ac/interview%20page/passege.html