Glory to Heroes

four Canadians have saved the world from genetic catastrophe
one Armenian has invented a new form of rocket fuel
and medicine to cure cancer
one Russian sacrificed himself
unplugged a reactor and saved the international space station
one Englishman gave up his liver to a wounded journalist a woman
who returned after the Gypsy coup in California
one Tatar in the midst of ethnic violence
in Southeast Asia saved 240 Malaysian infants
one French woman died for the freedom of Phobos in Deimos prison

one Kartadian
was meant to attack earth aboard a neutrino-powered ship
but
at the sight of that blue planet
turned his ship in the direction of the sun

life is love
people are immortal
glory
glory to heroes

Translation from the Russian
By Stephanie Sandler

Photo by Katy Swarovskaya

Feodor Swarovski was born in Moscow in 1971. He emigrated to Denmark in 1990 at the age of nineteen but returned to Moscow in 1997. He is a journalist who has worked for Russian television as well as print media. Swarovski's first book of poetry, Vse khotiat byt' robotami (2007; Everyone wants to be a robot), received the Moskovsky Schet prize and was short-listed for the Andrei Belyi prize. He was short-listed for the Andrei Belyi prize again in 2009 for his poetry collection Puteshestvenniki vo vremeni (Time travelers). Swarovski's poetry has been translated into English, Bulgarian, Danish, Polish, Slovenian, and Ukranian.

Stephanie Sandler is Professor of Slavic languages and literatures at Harvard University. Her most recent critical monograph was Commemorating Pushkin: Russia's Myth of a National Poet (2004). She has edited several collections of essays, including Rereading Russian Poetry (1999). Sandler collaborated with Genya Turovskaya in translating The Russian Version: Selected Poems of Elena Fanailova (2009) and is currently working on a book about contemporary Russian poetry.

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