And So I Write My Life

To my family and friends,

With love and gratitude

Preface

It is perhaps unusual to write a preface to a short collection of poems. However, having decided to publish my English and French poems in a book, I thought some pre-emption was necessary.

The poems presented here explore the themes that concern us all, regardless of age and country. Love, the meaning of life, faith, Time, our relations with other people… I certainly regard poetry as a philosophical inquiry into one’s life. This inquiry, however, is of artistic nature, as we do not merely lay out our emotions and ideas, but we present them as an image, an allegory, which the reader has to decipher in order to comprehend and show empathy. Having been influenced by surrealism, as a poet I often exhibit the metaphysical outlook typical of Giorgio de Chirico, which manifests itself even better in my Russian poems. In fact, some of the poems in this collection have been translated from Russian (they are marked by an asterix); some were inspired by paintings, others by music.

As for the reason why one may feel the urge to compose poems in a foreign language, in my case this is not a demonstration of my linguistic prowess. All my life I have been living in a bilingual world, hence it was natural to express myself in any language that felt the most appropriate. And sometimes it was appropriate to use a foreign language. My poems usually come in toto, so if a verse begins in English or French, it gets finished in the same language, too.

In spite of having a few publications under the belt, I was conscious of delivering a collection in English, so I asked my friends to be the readers. Hence it is with their approval that I now happily give this book away to the world. My heartfelt thanks go to Marco Brambilla and Adrian Slatcher, who kindly agreed to be the first readers and gave some valuable comments.

I dedicate this collection to them and to my family that has always been very supportive of my goals and aspirations.

Julia Shuvalova, Moscow, 2022

The Word*

I want to love you, but I know not, how;

To call your name – but is there such a name

That may become you? To the spheres above

I now entrust the knowledge of the same.

I barely hope and yet I almost fear

They will have found the word, and then (alas!)

I will gain power over you to bear,

The power that no mortal ever has.