Diego Isaias Hernández Méndez, Convertiendse en Characoteles / Sorcerers Changing into Their Animal Forms (detail), 2013, oil on canvas. Arte Maya Tz’utujil Collection.
AGNI 94
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Girlfriend
Marina Tsvetaeva (1892–1941) is one of the most beloved and influential authors in Russian literature. She is admired for the rawness and fierceness of her verse, which often conceal its considerable sophistication. In 1922, following the Russian Civil War, Tsvetaeva was forced to flee, first to Berlin, then Prague, and then Paris, before her eventual ill-fated return to the Soviet Union on the eve of World War II.
Mary Jane White is the author of the poetry collection Dragonfly. Toad. Moon. (Press 53, forthcoming 2022). Her translations of Marina Tsvetaeva appear along with original poems in Starry Sky to Starry Sky (Holy Cow! Press, 1988). She has also translated Tsvetaeva’s New Year’s: An Elegy for Rilke (Adastra Press, 2007) and After Russia: Poems of an Emigrant (bilingual edition; Adelaide Books, forthcoming 2021). Recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, one in poetry and one in translation, White is a retired trial lawyer who holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. (updated 10/2021)