Review: 'Birds, Beasts and a World Made New' by Guillaume Apollinaire & Velimir Khlebnikov ed. and trans. by Robert Chandler,

No art is created in a vacuum. I'd go further and say that nothing is every fully "created", in the sense that every author, poet, or artist builds upon the works of others and the things that the world offers up to them. But when the work of a poet, say, is presented to you in  alittle book, devoid of all that, it can be hard to see how someone could come up with something like that. And because of that, I adore how Pushkin Press allowed Robert Chandler to format this book. Thanks to Pushkin Press and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Pub. Date: 03/12/2024
Publisher: Pushkin Press Classics

Offering a fresh angle on two of the most innovative poets of the 20th century, and grouping poems by theme, celebrated translator and poet Robert Chandler finds surprising connections between Apollinaire and Khlebnikov, from their interest in animal poems and bestiaries to their distinctive approaches to war poetry.

Although Apollinaire and Khlebnikov never met, their restless innovations in poetic form shared much in common. Both pushed poetry to its limit, and their experiments proved fertile for generations of poets to come. Khlebnikov became associated with Futurism, though his inventiveness with language moved him far beyond it, while Apollinaire influenced a dizzying array of avant-garde movements, including Surrealism, Dadaism and Cubism.

Chandler offers a stimulating selection from both poets’ work in beautifully vivid new translations. Showcasing these poets’ exhilarating capacity for innovation as well as their more direct, heartfelt verse, this work offers a surprising journey into the world of two great Modernist poets.

One of the things I enjoy most about medieval literature, when you really dive into it, is how free it is with its material. By that I mean that authorship looked very different, as there was a certain freedom for everyone to pick up story material and to make something new out of it. Don't get me wrong, copyright is a good thing, especially in this capitalist time, but there is something very collaborative to medieval storytelling which gets lost a little in modern literature, where each work has one creator and that's it. Into this situation comes Birds, Beasts and a World Made New (BBWMN), a book edited by Robert Chandler to show how the art, poetry, and writing of two 20th-century artists came about through collaboration and a mutual inspiration by the world around them. Although, as the blurb says, Apollinare and Khlebnikov never met themselves, they moved in similar circles and engaged in continuous creative collaborations with those around them. The art they created engaged with the world and time period they both shared and therefore interacts directly, even if the creators of that art did not. I absolutely adore the idea behind this book and I truly hope to see more works like this in the future that directly put artists, authors, poets, etc. into conversation with one another. It makes for a very enriching reading experience. 

In BBWMN, Chandler brings together the works of French poet Guillaume Apollinaire and Russian/Ukranian poet Velimir Khlebnikov. The book is structured into various sections, which look at specific themes in the works of both poets. The first, for example, is "Beasts" and looks at certain poems by Apollinaire and Khlebnikov's writing about birds. It also includes, which delighted me, poems by others, who translated Apollinaire's poems and were inspired by them. This inclusion adds texture to the book, showing how Apollinaire, Khlebnikov, and their art were not just in conversation with one another, but continue to start conversations with modern authors and poets. Each section also begins with an introduction, or rather, each section has background material on both Apollinaire and Khlebnikov, which precedes their material in the section. I hope that makes sense. For some, this background material might impede the enjoyment of reading the poems themselves, as it presents a lot of history and names one might not be familiar with. However, I think this is a question of how you approach the book. I myself read it in two different ways. First, I read the whole thing, background info and poetry. And then, I did a reread where I just read the poetry. Both work and both give you a different kind of information. I think the beauty of a book like BBWMN is that it can provide both, but you as the reader have to make a choice on what you want from it before you start reading.

I give this book...

5 Universes!

My rating for this book is high in part because of its daring format, which I hope we will see more of. I will also say, however, that I very much enjoyed learning about these poets, Khlebnikov especially. I'll be keeping an eye out for more work from them and hopefully more volumes such as this!