I can’t speak to the other volumes but It doesn’t come off as unduly brash here, rather a respectful ancestral dialogue between Kossman and a shadowed but glowing figure who might represent a cultural grandmother or great aunt. This is also the case with other Poets and Traitors books which feature the original poems of translators of major poets alongside their translations. A courageous and impertinent duet, because of course Tsvetaeva is an iconic Russian poet. The effect is of a vibrant conversation between a translator and her translatee.
So the pairings present an after the fact editorial meditation that perhaps allows Kossman to revisit and further contextualize both her translations and her own poetry. And Kossman says her poems weren’t intentionally written in response to the individual Tsvetaeva lyrics they’re paired with. Nina Kossman has published two previous well received Tsvetaeva volumes that included some of these translations. This volume doesn’t appear to be a spontaneous, “in real time” exercise. It appears as part of the Poets and Traitors Press series which “seeks to showcase authors who travel between writing and translation” and “views translation as forming part of a continuum with the creative writer’s work.” The series, which began in 2013, arose from the New York New School’s translation workshop readings which incorporated a similar format. Other Shepherds is an unusual sequence that alternates translated Marina Tsvetaeva poems with poems by the translator.
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