For news of recent updates to this site and a Schedule of Don's readings, CLICK HERE.
Akhmatova Projects: These pages present Don Mager's multiple projects related to the Soviet era poet Anna Akhmatova and her great poema Poem Without a Hero. The projects include
- an opera libretto, Akhmatova
- a cycle of original poems, Akhmatova Odes
- a translation of Poem Without a Hero that seeks to capture some of the subtleties of meter rhyme and diction
- a vast variorum translation of Poem Without a Hero, including variants and related texts by Akhmatova and other poets
- an anthology called Us 4 Plus 4, which presents poems written to each other by 8 Soviet era poets with connections to Akhmatova. The poets are Anna Akhmatova, Aleksandr Blok, Marina Tsvetaeva, Osip Mandel'shtam (Mandelstam), Boris Pasternak, Vladimir Maiakovskii (Mayakovsky), Sergei Esenin (Yesenin) and Igor' Severianin.
- several published and unpublished scholarly articles including pieces on Mikhail Kuzmin
- a variety of links, bibliographies, resources and references, including some rare audio files of some of the poets reciting
Don Mager (b.1942) has degrees from Drake University (BA 1964), Syracuse University (MA in Creative Writing, 1966) and Wayne State University (Ph.D. 1986). He was the Mott University Professor of English at Johnson C. Smith University from 1998-2004 where he is now the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. He has published over 200 poems and translations from German, Czech and Russian that include: poems and translations in journals including Chicago Review, New Orleans Review, West Coast Review, The Cape Rock, Slant: A Journal of Poetry, Prairie Wind, Mad Poets Review, Texas Quarterly, Modern Words, The Charlotte Poetry Review, Main Street Rag, Sun Dog: The Southeast Review, The Kenyon Review, Salon: Journal of Aesthetics, Eclectica Magazine, Western Humanities Review and others.
Mager wrote texts for two song cycles in collaboration with composer, Marc Satterwhite of the University of Louisville: "Suffer Even The Least" and "Passage Work." These works have been performed over a dozen times in recitals in Atlanta, Charlotte, Louisville, Madison, WI, Lincoln, NE, Johannesburg, South Africa, and London, England.
Mager researched and wrote the three-act opera, Akhmatova, by Marc Satterwhite, which is planned for performance at the University of Louisville in spring 2007. The full text of the libretto can be accessed here:
"Akhmatova" Libretto vy Don Mager to opera by Marc Satterwhite
His volumes of poetry are: To Track the Wounded One, Glosses, That Which is Owed to Death, Borderings, Good Turns and The Elegance of the Ungraspable.
Mager has been a Professor of English at Johnson C. Smith University since 1986. He is the Director of the university's annual Poetry Fesitval the first week of April. He has published scholarly articles, book chapters and music and scholarship reviews.
 Most recent updates 10 April 2008
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