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Paper-thin Skin by Aigerim Tazhi
Translated from the Russian by J. Kates
One of the first Kazakhstani women poets to gain international attention, Aigerim Tazhi offers incisive and intimate observations in these seemingly spare poems that “pour out a little from an overflowing heart.”
Paper-thin Skin is her debut collection in translation. Readers will find images of fish, insects, birds, the sea, the sky, humans seeking connection, and death in these succinct poems, along with windows, mirrors, and eyes: these are poems of observation and deep reflection. Tazhi gently insists that we look at words and the world “in the eye,” as she seeks to create what translator J. Kates calls a “mystic community of communication.”
Aigerim Tazhi (Айгерим Тажи) was born in the western Kazakhstani city of Aktobe (formerly called Aktyubinsk) in 1981. She is a graduate of the Aktyubinsk (Zhubanov) State University. Her only book of poetry so far, БОГ-О-СЛОВ (“THEO-LOG-IAN” but there is a play on words that could come out "GOD O' WORDS") was published in 2003. She has received numerous literary prizes in Kazakhstan and Russia for poems in the collection, and in 2011 she was a finalist for the Russian Debut Prize in poetry. Her work has been translated into English, French, and Armenian, and published in prominent literary magazines. Tazhi was one of the creators of a project of literary installations, “The Visible Poetry,” in 2009. She lives in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
J. Kates is the author of several collections of his own poetry, and the translator of more than a dozen books by Russian and French poets, including Tatiana Shcherbina, Mikhail Aizenberg, Mikhail Yeryomin, Aleksey Porvin, Jean-Pierre Rosnay, and Sergey Stratanovsky. He co-translated four books of Latin American poetry, was the translation editor of Contemporary Russian Poetry, and was the editor of In the Grip of Strange Thoughts: Russian Poetry in a New Era. He has been awarded three National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, an Individual Artist Fellowship from the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts, the Cliff Becker Book Prize in Translation, and a Käpylä Translation Prize.
Translated from the Russian by J. Kates
One of the first Kazakhstani women poets to gain international attention, Aigerim Tazhi offers incisive and intimate observations in these seemingly spare poems that “pour out a little from an overflowing heart.”
Paper-thin Skin is her debut collection in translation. Readers will find images of fish, insects, birds, the sea, the sky, humans seeking connection, and death in these succinct poems, along with windows, mirrors, and eyes: these are poems of observation and deep reflection. Tazhi gently insists that we look at words and the world “in the eye,” as she seeks to create what translator J. Kates calls a “mystic community of communication.”
Aigerim Tazhi (Айгерим Тажи) was born in the western Kazakhstani city of Aktobe (formerly called Aktyubinsk) in 1981. She is a graduate of the Aktyubinsk (Zhubanov) State University. Her only book of poetry so far, БОГ-О-СЛОВ (“THEO-LOG-IAN” but there is a play on words that could come out "GOD O' WORDS") was published in 2003. She has received numerous literary prizes in Kazakhstan and Russia for poems in the collection, and in 2011 she was a finalist for the Russian Debut Prize in poetry. Her work has been translated into English, French, and Armenian, and published in prominent literary magazines. Tazhi was one of the creators of a project of literary installations, “The Visible Poetry,” in 2009. She lives in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
J. Kates is the author of several collections of his own poetry, and the translator of more than a dozen books by Russian and French poets, including Tatiana Shcherbina, Mikhail Aizenberg, Mikhail Yeryomin, Aleksey Porvin, Jean-Pierre Rosnay, and Sergey Stratanovsky. He co-translated four books of Latin American poetry, was the translation editor of Contemporary Russian Poetry, and was the editor of In the Grip of Strange Thoughts: Russian Poetry in a New Era. He has been awarded three National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, an Individual Artist Fellowship from the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts, the Cliff Becker Book Prize in Translation, and a Käpylä Translation Prize.