At The Interface Of Languages - preface

This book was written over two seasons, winter and spring 2023, by the handiwork of a whole team of five people. My idea was simple: to write a book of poems entirely in English. And it wouldn't be my book if it weren't for the fact that, in fact, I don't actually know English myself. It was then that I turned to two of my old comrades, who wished to remain anonymous, unfortunately. D. and T., having listened to me, were also fired up by the idea of creating a kind of precedent in the linguistic environment - to write a thing that exists at the junction of languages, transcending both, thus rewriting the tradition. The originals were written by me in broken Russian, in my own alien rhythm, because I thought in English, but wrote in Russian. Such an extremely unusual poetic milieu we had formed.
Half of the texts were already finished by then. They were finished quickly, and the book was finished in a week. And all hell broke loose. Together with D.&T. we tried to recreate a phonetic and syntactic structure that would satisfy both the original idea (the original texts) and the "foreign environment" (English, in particular - American poetry, the Western tradition). Everything was remade and rewritten. From the original texts to the translations themselves and even their rough drafts, everything went under the knife. We were striving for the ideal. The best of the best. We had to preserve the rhythmic brokenness, the metaphorical tearing, all the layers (or most of them) of allusiveness, the philosophical, the screaming energy and narrative, while also preserving the spirit, the story that the book itself addresses mentally, in the language of transgression. In the end, it wasn't until near the end of February that we got it right. This book wore everyone out to the ground, even though the number of pages might not seem so at first glance. But you would know how much went into it. In those 100 pages...
I did the translation of the poem by myself, because I couldn't ask my friends for more, knowing how much they worked on it. I didn't have any problem with it, because "Mirotel" and "Ronin" were already written with a very precise idea of what I wanted to see in the end. I should have just spent more time, sat through dictionaries and on the internet for the desired result. I can't say I'm completely satisfied with the translation, in my opinion it doesn't even come close to what D.&T. did, and in my opinion their translations are close to genius, considering the incredible, unique poetic environment we managed to create. In fact, another close friend of mine, acted as a reviewer for the poem and the collection, with much of what has been said here – she agrees. Here are her words:
"AFTD" is, in my opinion, primarily an empirical experience. Nemel and company have tried to make a complete, as far as one can tell here, transcendental-linguistic transition from two different linguistic environments into some other, new one, not yet accessible to the average person. The book itself tells its own story, which reminds me of the structure of a classic dystopia (if the latter was written by a heroin addict). And this story is emphasized more stylistically, contextually, rather than through a blind prose narrative. The hero of "AFTD", of course, goes the way, but which way? I think it is the same one that language takes in the poetics within the book itself. As if identifying with it, the hero suffers, perishes, resurrects, and philosophizes through external ruin and sparkling inner marble fullness. It is a book about the very structure of language, full of reflections on the political content of reality and allusive appropriation in the very system of the image, the fall and rebirth of Euclidean geometry in a new poetic context, the experience and rebellion of one poet in the unlike anything else stage-managed by two traditional schools of writing (English and Russian).
I gave the essay to my colleague Artem Vakhrin, the second member of the Marx Circle, to translate. I almost did not interfere in the process of translation, I just told him how I saw it approximately and what stylistic picture I wanted to achieve - a shamanic-psychedelic-philosophical parable.  The work lasted almost two months. There were some everyday difficulties, fakaps, reworkings and editing of material, but in my opinion the translation turned out more than passable, because the main thing – it keeps the atmosphere, psycho-vibe, words jumping into thick knots of deep fundamentals of apparent existence system (and not only), even if the translation can be sometimes wrong in coordinates and methodological mistakes, which, unfortunately, are unavoidable in such work. But let us give the floor to the translator:
While working on the interpretation of an essay «Shades of black» by my colleague K. Nemel, I found it very long and harmonic. I’ve used dictionaries, translator and, of course, my own English language knowledges. At some point I needed to consult with my teacher because some parts of an essay were hard to interpret on English language (Praise to the corridor and Outlandest for example): however, I have to admit that my translation is smooth and quite qualified. Worling process was some kind of a meditation, an invisible touch with something bigger than you are, – with the language itself. Sure, I had to find some ways to adapt Russian to English changing the structures of author. As I see it, the work of Nemel is one of the most in his art. It is a unique phenomenon – metaphoric, without a look of a scientific labour – but it really is in it's inner structure. K. Nemel created a new genre which I can call «mind meditation», – a contact with transcendental through the text, through the swimming in it’s ocean. Therefore, the translation, writing or reading process is similar to this meditation – touching the depth of the text, or you can call it – it’s meaning. Of course, my work is not perfect due to lack of knowledges and the translation practice. However, rewritten in a rush, this interpretation is still an important thing to me – the one which can give (or not give) me a chance to work with the language further, to disappear in it completely. I have to mark the style and structures used by Nemel: finding out the construction and picking up the correct meaning was interesting and useful. I have to admit that I hadn’t seen this type of texts (and I won’t see them at all – because «Shades of black» is unique)
This is the story of my book.  It remains to wish you a smooth immersion into this neurotic, manic, but honest Wonderland, existing at the junction of philosophy, poetry, prose, linguistics and madness.


Nemel, May 2023
Marx Square