Don Mager
  Poet and Scholar
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  Welcome
Web Publishing
Contact Don Mager
Published Translations
Don's Web Presence
Don's Akhmatova Story
Akhmatova Pictures
Essays about Akhmatova
Mager's "Akhmatova Odes"
Published Papers
Poem Without A Hero
Akhmatova Live Recording
Essays on Related Poets

 
 Announcement New Book Publication
 
Now from UNO Press

The Katrina Papers

Us Four Plus Four: Eight Russian Poets Conversing
translated from the Russian by Don Mager

Aleksandr Blok
Sergei Esenin
Vladimir Maiakovskii
Osip Mandel’shtam
Marina Tsvetaeva
Igor’ Severianin
Boris Pasternak
Anna Akhmatova

 

Collected and Translated by Don Mager

 

Paperback, 5.5"x8.25", 348 pages

ISBN: 0-9706190-4-9
ISBN 13: 978-0-9706190-4-4

January 2009
 
While Us Four Plus Four is an expansive collection of poetry from eight of Russia’s most well-known and influential poets, its arrangement as a conversation is what distinguishes it from those that precede it. The literary value of each poem is evident in its own right, but by reading these poems as a conversation, we are better able to appreciate the significance of these poets in both a social and historical context. Don Mager’s translations maintain the distinctive nature of each poet’s voice, injecting the poems with the appropriate energy, chaos, remorse or respect. His attention to detail and passion for accuracy are apparent in both his historical research and in the creativity of his translations; he weaves a chronological tale of the love, pain, honor, and loss felt by the poets and effectively depicts the arduous era in which they lived. From the insight of Akhmatova to the boyishness of Mandel’shtam and the despair of Blok, Mager’s efforts have resulted in a comprehensive yet unintimidating anthology of early- to mid-twentieth-century Russian poetry. Accessible to an audience unfamiliar with these poets, Us Four Plus Four is informative without being pretentious. It entertains without compromising its contribution to the academic and literary worlds. Mager’s collection takes one conversation and begins hundreds more.
 
 
 
 
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.
 
 
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