Translation Notes
Liliya Gazizova’s poems have already been translated into several languages, and my own experience translating her work into French and Greek showed me how naturally her voice adapts to new linguistic landscapes; rendering these poems into English felt just as organic, though it required preserving her understated imagery while shaping a rhythm that wouldn’t soften it, especially in the drifting movement of Between the Facades and the Sky, the gentle metaphysics of Clay and June, and the culturally rooted detail of Tashkent the Bird; in these versions I aim for a clear, unornamental fidelity to her shifts of thought, a voice attentive to both rhythm and texture.
—Valentina Chepiga
clay always wants to be
more than clay
for example, a wall
behind which laughter is heard
or perhaps a cup
where the cosmos gurgles
it wants to be the content
not just the vessel
it wants to have a name
yet receives the imprints
of tiny feet and little hands
clay always wants to be
more than clay
just like us
always half-spoken
always half-created
falling in love with the alleyways that drift
through the old town
that carry me away
from myself
almost breaking
against the wind
and losing myself like this
between the facades and the sky
turning my back
on the stars
and pretending to be me
in June it is sweet to be alive
especially on my birthday
it is easier to be someone who has disappeared
June knows the scent of waiting
the laughter that sings in the distance
and the glass that trembles
when love
looks into it
June sits on the edge of the window
letting its legs hang in the blue
in one hand it holds
a small coin that brings luck
in the other
a little paper airplane
made from a child’s note
on which is written
“I have not forgotten you”
time is not given to you
it is sewn into the air
with discreet stitches
so that you can breathe
June carries you in its palm
like a drop of warm water
and says
here she is
the one for whom the morning lingered
and no one contradicts it
because everything is truly in bloom
in June one does not grow old
but one can finish writing
his name
on the surface of the water
its wings are
woven from tie-dyed yarn
stitched from the curtains
of the past
the city turns time
like the pages of a child’s notebook
where writing changes
from one summer to the next
in its beak
it carries the seeds of old words
in its eyes
dance the reflections of the sun
like in old photographs
it sits on the minaret
and sees a distant courtyard
where a grandmother cuts melons
and calls the sky “God’s ceiling”
in its chest
an almond tree blooms
its tail
is the last route
in the memories of a woman
with hands of warm clay
it perches
on wires between times
and chirps
in the language of love
its beak is made of copper
its feathers smell of dried apricot
its nest
is hidden in the old minaret
but every morning
it pretends
to be barely born
from zero
from breath
sometimes it is mistaken
for a fever
for the voice of a mother
calling from the window
or for a childhood
tied to a branch with a metal wire
it knows
where the city ends
and where you begin
and there
it sings
Acknowledgements
Image credits: Clementine Keith-Roach. I is another (2024). Dimensions: 20 1/2″ x 58 1/4″ x 29 7/8″. Materials: terracotta vessel, plaster and resin composite, wood, steel, resin clay, modeling paste, and acrylic paint © Photo by Damian Griffiths.
Translator | Valentina Chepiga
Valentina Chepiga is a lecturer (Russian and translation) in France and a poet. Into French, she has translated, among others, Vladimir Mayakovsky (with Elena Bagno), Igor Severyanin, Yevgeny Zamyatin, and Mikhail Yasnov; into Russian, Philippe Beck and Jacques Goorma.
Latest publication: Valentina Chepiga and Ksenia Volokhova, The Poetesses of the Russian Silver Age, anthology, Vibration Editions, 2025. [Text source: Valentina Chepiga]
Author | Liliya Gazizova
Liliya Gazizova (Dr. Janti), a Russian-language poet of Tatar origin, graduated of the Gorky Literary Institute in Moscow, professor of literature at Erciyes University (Kayseri, Turkey). General Secretary of the poetic journal Interpoezia (New York). Author of eighteen poetry collections. A feminine voice in contemporary Russian-language poetry, her work resonates with poetic echoes from various times and traditions.
Latest publication: Liliya Gazizova, Between Love and Earthquake (Vibration Editions, 2025), a trilingual collection of poems (Russian–French–Turkish), translated into French by Marek Mogilewicz and Valentina Chepiga, and into Turkish by Uğur Büke. [Text source: Valentina Chepiga]
