Мария Визи - A moongate in my wall: собрание стихотворений

The collection was noticed in Europe. In 1937, the Shanghai-Paris journal Russkie zapiski (Russian Notes) reviewed several books published in Shanghai. The reviewer, concealed under the initials I.F., commented on Mary Vezey's poetry: "in the first collection, the Russian poems seemed like a translation from English, and the English poems a translation from Russian." This second collection, he continued, shows hard work, but new poems "lack independence. One feels the influence of Blok, of the lyrical poetry of Gumilev, and most of all of Akhmatova. These are real 'women’s' poems. Most of them are sad love lyrics." [24] I.F., "Emigrantskie pisateli na Dal'nem Vostoke" (emigre Writers in the Far Hast), Russkie zapiski (Russian Notes), Shanghai-Paris, no. 1, 1937, p. 324–323.

At the end of the 1930s, the Si no-Japanese War was raging in China, and the Second World War was about to engulf the world. In 1939, the Vezey family left China for San Francisco, a city favoured by many Russians from China. Mary Vezey's father, who had fallen seriously ill in Shanghai, died soon after their arrival in 1939; her mother in 1950. In September 1940, Mary Vezey married Evgenii Fedorovich Tourkoff (1908–1981), a Harbin Russian, a graduate of the Harbin Polytechnic Institute, an engineer, and soon they had a daughter Olga. In the 1960s, Mary Vezey worked as an assistant secretary to Professor Edwin B. Boldrey, a prominent neurosurgeon and Chairman of Neurological Surgery at the University of California Medical Center.

She continued to write and translate, and her poems appeared in emigre periodicals in the USA and Europe. Eight poems were included in Sodruzhestvo (Concord) (Washington, 1966), a significant collection representing the work of 75 living Emigre poets. In the 1960s, she offered a collection of her translations of the emigre poets Dmitrii Klenovskii and Vladimir Smolenskii to the Wesleyan University Press, Connecticut, explaining in the proposal: "Klenovsky (now living in Germany) is regarded as the most important of the Russian emigre poets. (…) He is quite unknown in English, although represented in an anthology published by Edinburgh University, as well as in an important German anthology. Smolensky, who died in Paris in 1961, was another Emigre who attained lasting fame among readers of Russian poetry. Both men will be read and admired long after Evtushenko and Voznesensky are forgotten." [25] Letter from M. Vezey to Wesleyan University Press, undated, ca. end of 1960s. At the time, however, there was not much interest in emigre poets, and no publisher was found.

In 1973, her third collection, Golubaia trava (Blue Grass), dedicated to her husband, came out in San Francisco. It contained 47 poems in Russian; sixteen came from the second collection, one had already appeared in the Paris journal Vozrozhdenie (Resurrection), and another both in Vozrozhdenie and in the collection Sodruzhestvo. All are undated, and only the reader familiar with the second collection can see what is new.

Iu.V. Kruzenshtern-Peterets, a former Harbin poet and journalist, praised the poet in her review for "powerful and beautifully polished" poems, for "mystical," "Blok-like" pictures, and for Gumilev's motifs, reserving special praise for the poem "Etiud" (Etude) (poem 233). She had reservations about the key poem "Ostrova" (Islands) (poem 214): it lacked "the music inherent in the poet's works, and the precision of line," and 'suffered from rhetoric." [26] Ju. Kruzenshtern-Peterets, "Tret'ia kniga Marii Vizi" (Third Book by Mary Vezey J, Novoe russkoe sloiw (New Russian Word), New York, 23 September 1973. In a radio broadcast for "The Voice of America," Iu.V. Kruzenshtern-Peterets said that in Mary Vezey's poetry "one can trace some influence of the symbolists as is evident from the very title of the book. 'Blue grass' grows on an island yet unseen by man; perhaps it is a magical country, perhaps a paradise. At the same time, in Mary Vezey's poetry one can find an affinity with acmeism: dislike of formal pretentiousness, fineness of line, genuine lyricism, and, the main thing, melodiousness. Her poems sing." [27] Ju. Kruzenshtern-Peterets, "Radioperedacha stantsii 'Golos Ameriki' о sbornike stikhov Marii Vizi "Golubaia trava" (Radiotransmisson of the "Voice of America" on the Collection of Poems "Golubaia trava" by Mary Vezey), Kharbinskie kommerchcskie uchilishcha Kit. Vost. zhel. Dor., no. 12, 1974, p. 5.

Another reviewer, the priest A. Pavlovich, praised "the exceptional sincerity of the poet," "the fine cast of her heart," "the high personal expectations," "the exemplar)' form of her presentation," "her simplicity" and "her serenity," [28] A. Pavlovich, "Knizhnaia polka. M. Vizi. Golubaia trava. Tret'ia kniga stikhov" (Bookshelf. M. Vezey. "Golubaia trava." The Third Book of Poetry.), Russkain zhizn' (Russian Life), 10 August 1973. while in the opinion of the emigre poet lu. Terapiano the poems "bear evidence of great experience: they are not only sincere, but also well reasoned, inwardly focused, and concentrated. In her poetry, ordinary pictures of nature, urban landscapes, and daily surroundings common to us are always related to personal feelings and are perceived both here, on earth, and on a higher plane. I… J With short broken lines and the simplest images she can give a picture filled with inner content and great concealed meaning." [29] Ju. Terapiano, "Novye knigi" (New Books), Russknia mysl (Russian Thought), Paris, 20 December 1973.

Emigre poet Valerii Pereleshin thought very highly of Vezey's poetry, writing to her about the poem "Как strashno odinoki my na svete" (How terribly lonely we are in this world) (poem 244): "Harbin can be proud of you as a poet. The poem is beautiful and technically perfect. 1 must say that I am waiting for your book with impatience. And 1 foresee that 'the universal scale' of ЈmigrЈ poetry will shift as soon as this future book comes out. (…) And another special praise: your rhymes are precise, taken from the living language, not composed." [30] Letter from V. Pereleshin to M. Vezey, 10 October 1972. In another letter, he defined her poetry as "poems with 'reticence' which have to be thought through. I love such poems. (…) I always welcome 'reticence': this is partly the influence of the Chinese classical poets who never dotted their 'i's. The reader was a participant in the creation. Poems with 'reticence' are far from 'nonsense.' They are also justified by the fact that poetic feeling is always irrational to some degree, not fully expressible. (…) It is great that you are sparing and laconic in your poems. I regard this as an ideal of poetic architecture. I think that Soviet poets are so long-winded because they are paid per line. No one pays emigre poets anything for their poetry." [31] Letter from V. Pereleshin to M. Vezey, 9 June 1971.

His review, however, expressed his contentious view of "women poets." On the one hand, he characterized Golubaia trava as "a collection of pure, good poetic quality, written by a woman-poet (zhenshchina-poet \." For him, many poems exhibit the style of "a poet, not a poetess" (poet, a ne poetessa) and in them "Pegasus takes flight, and the spirit touches the outlines of the beyond. I…) In spite of its purely feminine emotionality, Golubaia trava is an excellent book." On the other hand, he stated: "M. Vezey dedicates her third book to her husband, and this places her among the followers of Akhmatova. (…) As a poetess (poetessa J, M. Vezey is very strong, but for me personally, poetry begins at the place where the poetess ends and the poet begins. Mary Vezey has quite a few poems which are already free from emotionality which is hard to overcome, and one is extremely pleased by the poems where she speaks simply as a person, and not as a woman." [32] V. Pereleshin, "M. Vizi. "Golubaia trava" (M. Vezey. "Blue grass"), Novyi zhumnl (The New Review), New York, no. 114, 1974, p. 248–249. This chauvinistic prejudice and confusion of issues are reflected in Pereleshin's poem "Nochnie proletaiut poezda" (Night trains rush on), dedicated to Mary Vezey, where Pereleshin speaks of her "sadness with its enormous eyes," her barely audible voice, almost a whisper, and her "impersonal," "asexual" signature "M. Vezey." [33] V. Pereleshin, "Nochnye proletaiut poezda," Russkaia zhizn', 12 March 1971. Her surname, indeed, does not indicate gender in the way many Russian surnames do, but what he failed to understand was that this signature, instead of "Mary Vezey," meant that to a true poet gender did not matter.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Mary Vezey continued to write and translate in Russian and in English. In the summer of 1985, Mary Vezey and Valerii Pereleshin began working on an anthology of Russian poetry of China, tentatively entitled "U dobrogo drakona" (In the Home of a Kind Dragon). [34] Letter from V. Pereleshin to M. Vezey, 27 June 1987. The work took a lot of time and effort. Pereleshin soon bowed out, hoping that Leiden University would supplement his forthcoming memoirs "Dva polustanka" (Two Wayside Stations) with an anthology He informed Mary Vezey that the joint compilation was now hers alone and in the further correspondence kept calling it "your anthology." When Pereleshin's death on 7 November 1992 ended his indirect participation, Mary Vezey did not abandon the project: "1 hope to complete my literary work, no matter how insignificant it was, with this anthology.” [35] Letter from M. Vezey to O. Bakich, 22 May 1989. (…) The main desire and goal were to save this 'lost generation' and its valuable heritage from disappearance." [36] Letter from M. Vezey to O. Bakich, 14 February 1991.

In 1991, when Mar)' Vezey was asked about her next collection of poems, the answer was: "I have little time left, and I won't be able to accomplish much. I am not as strong as I used to be. But I would still like to publish three little books of mine: one of poetry (the last one), one of translations into English, and one more (a special one). But before that — not my poetry, but that of colleagues and friends who can no longer do it. [37] Letter from M. Vezey to O. Bakich, 13 May 1993. (…) I can't allow myself to publish something of mine; my goal is to preserve the unpublished works of my compatriots and colleagues." [38] Letter from M. Vezey to O. Bakich, 14 February 1994.

Mary Vezey died on 18 October 1994 in San Francisco.

In one early poem she wrote: "This is not a poem, this is the music of the soul" (poem 275), and musicality is inherent in her poetry, as it is for many romantics and symbolists who considered music the highest form of art. The tonality of her music is sadness; Blok's "heavy flame of sadness" [39] K. Chukovskii, Aleksandr Blok как chelovck i как poet (Aleksandr Blok as a Person and as a Poet), Petrograd, 1924, p. 135. is the key to her entire poetry: "great sorrow is given to us, / and we carry it as a banner" (poem 180). Its root lies in the contrast between the crude, gray life on earth and the vision of the other, beautiful world: "the soul did not have enough words / to tell of the sadness of dreams" (poem 468). One of the key symbols of this other, invisible world is a star, and her first collection opens with a poem where a white star falls down "to a cold, dry reality" (poem 1). In a poem dedicated to her brother, the poet says: "We both came not from this world, / but from a different star /(…) we live with a blessed hope / to see that star again" (poem 54).

Sad love lyrics are prominent in her early poetry: "I wrote my poems not for you at all, / but for my dream" (poem 295). Over the years, this "sadness with its enormous eyes" [40] See note 33. focuses on the sorrows of contemporary life: "there is so little warmth and joy in the world—/God, save and have mercy on people and animals!" (poem 441). The poet sees homeless, sick, old people, lost in a big city, hears an abandoned dog howling by locked gates, mourns the victims of the Civil War in Biafra and of the Vietnam War. Ten terse lines of "Nalet" lAir Raid) (poem 4B1) describe the bombing of a shipyard, the death of thirty-five children in an orphanage nearby, and the shooting down of an airplane. This dispassionate narrative is broken twice: in the second line, a woman's voice begs the pilot: "Take care! God be with you!/' and in the last line the same voice is barely able to contain its grief; "Only one did not come back — mine." The children in the enemy city perished, and so did the beloved who bombed it.