The Book of Ikons

By KATHERINE HOLLANDER & ALLA LAZEBNIK

Alla and I were introduced through a project that paired poets and painters affiliated with Boston University. Walking into her studio was like seeing all the things I wish my poems could do in language. We selected my five-poem series, “The Book of Ikons,” to work on together. This series (which also includes poems about Osip Mandelstam and Angelika Balabanoff, both Russian, like Alla), posits as worthy of iconography five historical figures, all of whose relationship with socialism was complicated by Soviet Communism, violence, or anti-semitism (three subjects also important to us). We wanted to explore the faith, hope, disappointment, transcendence and danger inherent in these ideals.

Alla created large-format monoprints, which became the digital images presented here, to be paired with the poems like facing panels in an icon screen. Rather than just creating illustrations, her images interact with and embody the poems. Like iconic images, these figures are idiosyncratic and not wholly accurate (for example, the little story about Kautsky is actually a conflation of several historical incidents). They capture what these figures mean to us, even if they are rooted in a reality that is at least partially imaginary.

*

Ikon for Rosa Luxemburg

art

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When you first crossed the border to Germany

you came covered up, hidden in a wagon like a tumbrel.

That sour little country, still the hope of your Europe,

where you made an uneasy home, a mouse

in a knife drawer. Sturdy engine, you, squat and self-

sufficient economy, in your good boots with your limp,

the frilled lip of your oyster-shaped hat, your murderous red language:

they killed you in the Eden Hotel and put you

in a river. I want to believe the last words you said

you said in German. I want to have faith you said

Don’t Shoot. But hush now—here you are—

not in prison, weeping over a beaten ox,

not beside yourself in August ’fourteen,

but in the meadow you loved so much,

up to your waist in the deep grass

and wild flowers, your eyes covered

with a bright visor of light.

*

Ikon for Käthe Kollwitz

art

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I can feel your crosshatchings on my body: little

wounds. Ink or charcoal, your black is the black

of the childhood room before sleep. Your whole

world divides into light and shadow, even

your skipping, syncopated name: a child

tripping up the museum steps and then the slow

ponderous gait of the mother behind it.

The hands you render broad as oar blades,

eloquent black mittens with intelligent

knuckles and bright nailbeds. You said “Vote!”

You said “Seed Corn Must Not Be Ground!”

And you showed the faces of the mourners

before the body of Leibknecht. Your son

died in a trench, wretched. In your self portrait

you regard yourself curiously, but without any pity,

cheek in palm. Yet when I look again you have altered,

you have put your face behind your hand,

that dark articulate spade.

*

Ikon for Karl Kautsky

art

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Idea-architect, the red rainbow

flutters behind you like an academic sash.

The sky itself is robin’s egg green and fretted

with cracks. And here you sit in your dark suit

and neat beard, like a good scholar.

Like a good scholar, you were hopeful

but you knew when the truth had to be faced.

Your eyes are formal and sad. One of them

sees revolution. The other sees the day after revolution.

You know you see neither in Russia.

You know that whatever it is you want

for the people, violence unfits them for it.

Your third eye, which no one can see, looks out anxiously

as you wait by the coffee pot for the last two men

of German social democracy to come home

from their walk. You are right to be worried.

They are picking off your friends one

by one. A whole constellation of stars put out,

fondest uncle—singly at first, and then all at once.

 

Katherine Hollander is a poet and doctoral candidate in modern European history at Boston University.

Alla Lazebnik is a figurative painter and printmaker.

The Book of Ikons

Related Posts

Image of an orange cupped in a hand

May 2023 Poetry Feature: New Poems by Our Contributors

TIMOTHY DONNELLY
Thorn-blossom! Tender thing, prone to solitude / like yours truly, don’t get it twisted if I reach out my hand— / it isn’t to pluck you, who are my beacon down this path, but a gesture / of acknowledgment common among my kind. / When the lukewarm breezes nod off

Red Lanterns in Night Sky

On Wariness

MYRONN HARDY
There is rhythm on the pavement. / There is rhythm in small / apartment rooms. / I’m over slicing tomatoes. / I’m over drinking wine. / I’m performing as not to be / deformed     as not / to show what I shouldn’t. / I don’t want to feel everything.

Image of two blank canvases on a white wall

Nina and Frida Enter the Chat

FELICE BELLE
these biddies with their deadbolt backs/ take naps / while i construct/ canvas from corset cast / art does not wait until you are well / what they did not understand—the training was classical / chopin, motherfuckers/ carry on like she some backwater bluesy / least common denominator