I hadn’t been aware of TYPO: The International Journal of Prototypes (at least I’m not aware of having been aware of it…), but I like the cheeky name; their new issue, #14, is out, and Alex Cigale, in a FB post, writes:
With my gratitude to Editors Norman Conquest and Paul Rosheim, I’m delighted to have 5 translations from the Russian of poems by Russian Futurist Elena Guro (circa 1910) in TYPO: The International Journal of Prototypes. Please consider purchasing Issue 14 to support the work of this restlessly inventive journal dedicated to keeping the spirit of literary Modernism alive. I’m particularly delighted to share the issue with poetry translations and introduction to Nikolai Zabolotsky, a member of Oberiu (second generation Russian Futurist), by Дмитрий Манин/Dmitry Manin, who presents a side of Zabolotsky, an acknowledged master of philosophical nature poetry, known to few English readers. There are also two “Biblical Sonnets” by Genrikh Sapgir of the Lianozovo School who helped revive the spirit of Russian Futurism post-Stalin. The issue includes translations from Italian, French, Hungarian, German (Rilke’s prose, “The Testament”), visual poetry by John Vieira and Kristen Szumyn, and much else that will keep this reader newly informed and entertained for some time to come. https://blackscatbooks.com/2026/03/31/typo-14-spring-break/
Suddenly autumnal
The earth breathed with willows into the near sky;
under the skittish clamor of raindrops it thawed.
It may be that she felt surpassed,
perhaps, she had been slighted,
but she continued believing in miracles.
Believing in her own high window:
small sky among the dark branches,
she never deceived us – guilty in nothing,
and so here she sleeps, breathing….
and it has become warm.1912
I really like that translation; it has the ring of an English modernist poem of the era, say by Pound. Guro’s original Russian, “Вдруг весеннее,” is here. I don’t seem to have mentioned Elena Guro at LH (the stress in Guro is on the second syllable — apparently it’s from French Gouraud); she was a painter, playwright, poet, and fiction writer, and probably would be better known if she hadn’t died of leukemia at 36.
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