Wednesday, April 02, 2014

Serge Segay translation project, from Alex Cigale

Alex Cigale (poet, editor, translator) https://auca.academia.edu/AlexanderCigale, http://theconversant.org/?p=6963 (interview with me) https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1325430255/serge-segays-exodickering-compositions-1963-1985 On the centennial of Russian Futurism (see manifesto "Slap in the Face of Public Taste,") I appeal for your support in helping me complete my book of translations of the foremost Neo-Futurist Russian poet, Serge Segay’s exoDICKERING: Compositions 1963-1985, a bilingual edition with facing pages of Russian and English texts and a Foreword by the foremost scholar of Russian Futurism, Gerald Janecek (Professor Emeritus, University of Kentucky). "There is perhaps no contemporary poet whose connection to Russian Futurism is so overt" (from the Foreword). You can read a short selection from the book online at MAYDAY magazine (Okla Elliott, Raul Clement et al., eds.) and a larger one included in my 50-page tribute to Russian Futurism available as a free PDF from EM-review (Daniele Pantano, ed.) It is an immensely complicated work replete with neologisms which I have worked on for over two years. The first 120 contributing $30 or more receive a signed copies of the book, due out from Miekal And's Xexoxial Editions (see the first volume, of Segay's visual poetry). For the past several years, I have been working to make a significant portion of Russian poetry available (much of it free online) to the English readership. While I have received substantial recognition, I now appeal to you for help in continuing this work. From my intro: "What does a revival of Russian Futurism mean in a post-modern context? Generally speaking, a similar ironic, whimsical, self-referential and deprecating tone, poured into a conceptual, parodic mold. From the earliest, Segay was announcing and telegraphing his program." ANARCHISM-FUTURISM MANIFESTO I am inspired by the smell of chicken shit and am unable to compose poems without the aroma of outhouses 1963 X-TREMISTS SCHOOL MANIFESTO We depict exclusively red squares only 1963 DIRECTIVE To write poems that cannot be read 1963 *** made a decision to become a young naturalist and am raising pea pods from seed in a bowl containing a little water. my poems turning out entirely unsatisfactory. 1963 From my introduction: "In two strains of Segay's work, both a continuation of Russian Futurism, he may be viewed as an early representative of poetry as performance (theater) and conceptual art." *** humanity will likely reach a point at which every type of activity will be just as useless as now is typical of the arts. meanwhile possible are experiments establishing the prototypes of useless activities 1977 *** our first exhibit took place in darkness. our last will be in a puddle. 1964 And another selection from Segay's neologistic zaniness (in my translation). from Serge Segay's r e c i p e s o f m e t a m t e x t o s i s 4. sour fluxage water (warm) ……………….....500 c hyperspermic dessicate………100 u ........or pharphallic…....……….150 n menstruarchic feelup………..…..12 t