The New York Observer

There is a curious disclaimer in the colophon of It’s No Good (n+1/Ugly Duckling Presse, 280 pp., $16), the first comprehensive collection of translated writings by the Russian poet Kirill Medvedev to appear in English: “Copyright denied by Kirill Medvedev, 2012.” After achieving a degree of success in the Moscow literary world as a poet and translator in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Mr. Medvedev announced a retirement of sorts in 2003: he would continue writing, but he would no longer take part in any of the other activities typical of the “professional” poet, refusing to give readings, accept awards or, most importantly, publish his work through conventional channels.

In a statement published on his website that year, Mr. Medvedev described what he saw as an oppressive cultural situation in which the artist was necessarily compromised by governmental and commercial interests. He renounced all copyright to his work, declaring in his 2004 “Manifesto on Copyright” that any future print editions of his writings would be “PIRATE EDITION[S], that is to say, WITHOUT THE PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR, WITHOUT ANY CONTRACTS OR AGREEMENTS.” He began posting poems and essays on his personal blogs and, more recently, on his Facebook wall, instead of in books and literary magazines. This was not, he insisted, a “heroic pose, or ‘PR’ stunt,” but rather an earnest attempt to posit an alternative to the circumstances faced by contemporary artists and writers, suggesting that such a position might offer a way toward a “more honest, uncompromising, and genuinely contemporary art in my country.” Read More