Authors

Discussion

Kibirov published his collection Na poliakh “A Shropshire Lad” in 2007. The book is laid out as if it were a dual-language edition, with the poems that make up A. E. Housman’s 1896 cycle on one page, and Kibirov’s poetic responses on the facing page. Yet in his foreword Kibirov explains that his own cycle of poems is nothing like a conventional set of translations, even though some of his texts are ‘free’ translations of Housman’s poems. These poems, described in the collection title as texts on the margins of Housman’s A Shropshire Lad, include several which take issue with the author’s outlook, rewriting, and revising the source texts sometimes to a considerable degree. At the same time, Kibirov’s foreword makes his admiration for Housman’s poetic skill very clear. This paper will explore the nature of Kibirov’s creative dialogue with the work of what might seem to be a highly unlikely interlocutor.