Anzhelina Polonskaya | Poetry | Apples via American Poetry Review

Apples

Gray branches, dull thuds.
Apples falling in late November, and we
gather them with frozen hands. Am I wrong?

or did you say something,
not tearing your eyes from the ground?

Something like “evil will triumph,”
you said quietly.
As if the tundra’s beyond us. As if we’re gathering stones in our skirts.

“Apples” was originally published in American Poetry Review and has been reprinted here with permission of the author.

Anzhelina Polonskaya was born in Malakhovka, a small town near Moscow. Since 1998, she has been a member of the Moscow Union of Writers and in 2003, Polonskaya became a member of the Russian PEN-centre. In 2004 an English version of her book, entitled A Voice, appeared in the acclaimed “Writings from an Unbound Europe” series at Northwestern University Press. This book was shortlisted for the 2005 Corneliu M Popescu Prize for European Poetry in Translation. Her work has appeared in Boulevard , The Iowa Review, The Massachusetts Review, Prairie Schooner, Barrow Street, The Journal, Poetry Daily, AGNI, New England Review, and The Literary Review, among other publications. Her book Paul Klee’s Boat was shortlisted for the 2014 Best Translated Book Award and for the 2014 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation.

Andrew Wachtel is the president of the American University of Central Asia in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. He has translated poetry and prose from Russian, Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, Bulgarian and Slovenian.

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