The Blue Notebook
Daniil Kharms
Translated by Matvei Yankelevich
October 2004
There lived a redheaded man who had no eyes or ears. He didn’t have hair either, so he was called a redhead arbitrarily. He couldn’t talk because he had no mouth. He had no nose either. He didn’t even have arms or legs. He had no stomach, he had no back, he had no spine, and he had no innards at all. He didn’t have anything. So we don’t even know who we’re talking about. It’s better that we don’t talk about him any more.
funny and paranoid
Harriet Blog, The Poetry Foundation
Eastern European Poets Series #6.
About the Author
About the Translator
Matvei Yankelevich is a founding member of the Ugly Duckling Presse editorial collective and has curated UDP’s Eastern European Poets Series since 2002, and was a co-editor of 6×6 (2000-2017). His most recent book of poetry is Some Worlds for Dr. Vogt (Black Square). His co-translation (with Eugene Ostashevsky) of Alexander Vvedensky’s An Invitation for Me to Think (NYRB Poets), received a National Translation Award. His translations of Daniil Kharms were collected in Today I Wrote Nothing: The Selected Writings of Daniil Kharms (Ardis/Overlook). He has been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the National Endowment for Humanities. He teaches translation and book arts at Columbia University’s School of the Arts.
In the News
Publication Details
Chapbook
Saddle-Stitched. 22 pp, 6 x 7 in
Publication Date: October 01 2004
Series: Eastern European Poets Series #6