NEW POEM: Words Apart

I live between languages. Russian is my mother tongue, but English is the language in which I now spend much of my life: working, reading, writing, and thinking. I am fluent in both, and yet sometimes I feel that I do not belong completely to either one.

My English still carries traces of learning it later in life. I notice my accent. I realize that I am not sure how some words are pronounced. After all, I only started speaking it fluently in my late twenties. But Russian is not my main language anymore. When I am trying to express myself, English words often come to me before the Russian ones. I find it easier to share some important ideas in English, which feels strange, since Russian will always remain my first language.

Usually, I don't mind being in between. In many ways, I enjoy it. Surfing between meanings and words—that’s my style. But there is one place where I feel the distance more painfully: poetry.

I used to write poems in Russian, and many of them are still very dear to me. I reread them sometimes, and then feel that I want so much to share them with people I know now. The problem is, most of these people don't speak Russian. Occasionally I try to translate some of my poems into English. And then I remember why I have stopped so many times before.

A poem isn't only what its words mean. It is also their sound, rhythm, associations, and the unexpected relationships created by rhyme. I can translate the meaning of a line, but then the rhythm disappears. I can find a rhyme, but the words no longer mean quite the same thing. I can write a new poem in English, perhaps even a good one—but it will never be that poem.

There is something larger in this small frustration. Language allows us to share our inner worlds, but it also sets limits on what can be shared. We are all shaped by particular cultures, memories, and experiences. We can explain them to one another. We can translate. We can get remarkably close. But some part always remains on the other side.

This isn't a tragedy. Mostly, it is simply part of living. But sometimes I really want my friends to read poems that exist only in Russian, and then I have to admit that they never quite can.

So, appropriately enough, I wrote a short poem (in English) about how it feels to be…
WORDS APART

We’re words apart.
We’re worlds apart.
Oh, why can’t I 
Translate my heart?

Lines lead nowhere,
Their branches cold.
They hold midair
My heart untold.

When rhymes can’t grow,
Each sentence hurts.
I’m letting go
The birds of words.

We’re lines apart.
We’re lies apart.
And you will never 
Read my heart.

[This essay will be included in Newsletter#25.]

If you would like to learn more about my poems, see here.