Mother Winter

by Sophia Shalmiyev

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  SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

  The italicized, slanted, dragging, pushing through a wall, walking toward and away from it all—mothers—was meant to announce, on the dedication page of my book, our many takes on this word: non-uterine, nonlinear, negotiable, collectivized. The notes below are brief and encompass only a fraction of the mothering knowledge gleaned from those who wrote so I could nurse the preceding pages into being. I cannot possibly include and properly thank everyone nesting in my head, but they all continue to rear this obvious child, chapter by chapter. Some of these citations are directly sourced and some are the chorus, the score, the soundtrack, and are woven in throughout the book. Borrowing is a courage. Italics are the flesh in the hands of a midwife. Quotation marks, the placenta.

  I

  Lorde, Audre. The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2000. Quoted from “Call,” page 417: “Mother, loosen my tongue or adorn me with a lighter burden.”

  Shire, Warsan. Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth. Mouthmark (Book 10). London: flipped eye publishing limited, 2011.

  II

  Duras, Marguerite. Duras by Duras. San Francisco: City Lights Publishers, 1987.

  Duras, Marguerite. The Lover. New York: Pantheon, 1998.

  III

  Gessen, Masha. The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia. New York: Riverhead Books, 2017.

  Mellow, James R. Charmed Circle: Gertrude Stein and Company. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 2003.

  Shuster, Simon. “Q&A: Masha Gessen Sees a Bleak Future for Putin’s Russia.” Time, October 9, 2017.

  Stein, Gertrude. Brewsie and Willie. New York: Random House, 1946.

  Taubman, William. Gorbachev: His Life and Times. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2017.

  IV

  Lorde, Audre. The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2000. Quoted from “Call,” page 417: “Mother, loosen my tongue or adorn me with a lighter burden.”

  V

  Davis, Lydia. The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis. New York: Picador, 2010. Page 24 is quoted from the short story “The Thirteenth Woman.”

  Svenonius, Ian. The Psychic Soviet. Chicago: Drag City, 2006.

  Svenonius, Ian. Supernatural Strategies for Making a Rock ’n’ Roll Group. Brooklyn: Akashic Books, 2013.

  VI

  Aviv, Rachel. “The Trauma of Facing Deportation.” The New Yorker, April 3, 2017.

  VII

  Edwards, Elwyn Hartley. The Horse Encyclopedia. New York: DK Publishing, 2016.

  IX

  Millet, Catherine. The Sexual Life of Catherine M. New York: Grove Press, 2003.

  Nin, Anaïs. Henry and June: From “A Journal of Love”: The Unexpurgated Diary (1931–1932) of Anaïs Nin. San Diego: Harvest Books, 1990.

  Réage, Pauline. Story of O: A Novel. New York: Ballantine Books, 2013.

  XI

  Reid, Anna. Leningrad: The Epic Siege of World War II, 1941–1944. New York: Walker & Company, 2011.

  XVI

  Danchev, Alex. The Letters of Paul Cézanne. New York: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2013.

  Rilke, Rainer Maria. Letters on Cézanne. New York: North Point Press, 2002.

  XVII

  Fletcher, Alan. The Art of Looking Sideways. New York: Phaidon Press, 2001.

  Haslett, Tobi. “The Other Susan Sontag.” The New Yorker, December 11, 2017.

  Sontag, Susan. Debriefing: Collected Stories. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017.

  Unique Japan. “Ma.” Explains the various ways “ma” is used in art, music, architecture, and culture. http://new.uniquejapan.com/ikebana/ma/.

  XVIII

  Sontag, Susan. Regarding the Pain of Others. New York: Picador, 2004.

  XIX

  Adler, Renata. Speedboat. New York: NYRB Classics, 2013.

  Joyce, James. Ulysses. Knoxville, TN: Wordsworth Classics, 2010.

  Lorde, Audre. Zami: A New Spelling of My Name—A Biomythography. New York: Crossing Press, 1982.

  McCarthy, Julie. “How a Lack of Toilets Puts India’s Women at Risk of Assault.” Morning Edition, NPR, June 9, 2014.

  Mueller, Cookie. Walking Through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e)/Native Agents, 1990.

  Richardson, Dorothy. Pilgrimage Trilogy: Pointed Roofs, Backwater, Honeycomb. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2018.

  Troup Buchanan, Rose. “India Mango Tree Rape Case: Cousins found hanging ‘committed suicide’ and were not ‘sexually assaulted’ claim Indian authorities.” Independent (London), November 27, 2014.

  XX

  Holy Bible. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2006.

  Barthes, Roland. A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments. New York: Hill and Wang, 2010.

  O’Connor, Sinéad. I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got. Ensign/Chrysalis Records, March 20, 1990.

  XXI

  Barthes, Roland. Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. New York: Hill and Wang, 2010.

  Barthes, Roland. Mourning Diary. New York: Hill and Wang, 2012.

  Mayer, Bernadette. The Desire of Mothers to Please Others in Letters. Brooklyn: Nightboat, 2017.

  The common mnemonic “An orphan is left behind, whereas a widow must go alone” is used in typesetting and can be found in The Chicago Manual of Style. Used as a metaphor in this chapter.

  XXII

  Carson, Anne. Eros the Bittersweet. Champaign, IL: Dalkey Archive Press, 1998.

  Carson, Anne. If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho. New York: Vintage, 2003. The two books by Carson cited in this chapter are the foundation on which Mother Winter was ultimately built and appear throughout.

  Dubost, Patrick. “What I Know.” Translated by Fiona Sampson. Poetry, April 2009.

  Farmer, Frances. Will There Really Be a Morning? New York: Dell, 1973.

  Kraus, Chris. I Love Dick. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e)/Native Agents, 1997.

  The Jimi Hendrix Experience. Are You Experienced. Reprise Records, August 23, 1967.

  Mendelsohn, Daniel. “Girl, Interrupted: Who Was Sappho?” The New Yorker, March 16, 2015.

  XXIII

  Carson, Anne. Eros the Bittersweet. Champaign, IL: Dalkey Archive Press, 1998.

  Carson, Anne. If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho. New York: Vintage, 2003.

  Mendelsohn, Daniel. “Girl, Interrupted: Who Was Sappho?” The New Yorker, March 16, 2015.

  Thaller, Michelle. How the Universe Works. The Science Channel, 2012.

  XXVI

  Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. “What Is an Epigram?”

  Proust, Marcel. Swann’s Way: In Search of Lost Time. Translation by Lydia Davis. New York: Penguin Classics, 2004.

  XXVII

  Jacobs, Jane. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: Vintage, 1992. Also see documentary film: Tyrnauer, Matt, dir. Citizen Jane: Battle for the City. 2017; New York, NY: Altimeter Films.

  Sullivan, Rosemary. Stalin’s Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva. New York: Harper Perennial, 2016.

  Yourcenar, Marguerite. That Mighty Sculptor, Time. Translation by Walter Kaiser. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1993.

  XXIX

  Kandinsky, Wassily. Concerning the Spiritual in Art. San Francisco: Empire Art Press, 2017.

  Mayer, Bernadette. The Desi
re of Mothers to Please Others in Letters. Brooklyn: Nightboat, 2017.

  XXX

  Boss, Pauline. “The Myth of Closure.” On Being, June 23, 2016.

  Brumfiel, Geoff. “Final Report on MH370 Says Failure to Locate Airliner is ‘Almost Inconceivable.’ ” NPR, October 3, 2017.

  McCarthy, Julie. “Double Rape, Lynching in India Exposes Caste Fault Lines.” All Things Considered, NPR, June 2, 2014.

  Silverstein, Shel. The Giving Tree. New York: Harper & Row, 1964.

  Staff Reporting. “When Loved Ones Go Missing, Ambiguity Can Hold Grief Captive.” All Thing Considered, NPR, March 15, 2014.

  XXXI

  Babes in Toyland. Fontanelle. Reprise Records, August 11, 1992.

  Babes in Toyland. To Mother. Twin/Tone Records, July 1, 1991.

  Danchev, Alex. Cézanne: A Life. New York: Pantheon, 2012.

  Rewald, John. Cézanne: A Biography. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1986.

  An excerpt of the lyrics to “Handsome and Gretel” are:

  My name is Gretel yeah

  I’ve got a crotch that talks

  And talks to all their cocks

  It’s been twelve city blocks you fucking bitch

  Gretel said, oh you feel so bad

  I know you feel so bad

  I thought she meant it

  Handsome Gretel

  I vacuumed out my head

  Jumping from bed to bed

  My name is Gretel

  A soul of metal

  My name is Gretel yeah

  I’ve got a sloppy slot

  Babes in Toyland had a huge impact on Mother Winter. As suggested to me by Leni Zumas, the original title of this book was To Mother. It was the sonic and philosophical blend of Carson, Sappho, and Kat Bjelland: a verb and a nod to the epistolary heritage of our foremothers. Please see the Babes’ complete discography, as all of their songs hover above and infuse the chapters.

  XXXIII

  Bair, Deirdre. Anaïs Nin: A Biography. London: Trafalgar Square, 1996.

  Homer. The Iliad. Translation by George Chapman. Knoxville, TN: Wordsworth Classics, 2003.

  Lessing, Doris. The Golden Notebook: A Novel. New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2008.

  Nin, Anaïs. Mirages: The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1939–1947. Athens, OH: Swallow Press, 2015.

  XXXIV

  Barthes, Roland. A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments. New York: Hill and Wang, 2010.

  XXXV

  Arcade, Penny. Bad Reputation: Performances, Essays, Interviews. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e)/Native Agents, 2009.

  Finley, Karen. Shock Treatment. San Francisco: City Lights Publishers, 2001.

  Fisher, Amy and Robbie Woliver. If I Knew Then . . . iUniverse Publishing, 2004.

  Higgs, Christopher. “Heroine Worship: Talking with Kate Zambreno.” The Paris Review, October 22, 2012.

  Shocking Blue. “Send Me a Postcard” single. Pink Elephant, 1969.

  Van der Kolk, Bessel. The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. New York: Penguin Books, 2015.

  Wuornos, Aileen. Lisa Kester and Daphne Gottlieb, eds. Dear Dawn: Aileen Wuornos in Her Own Words. Berkeley, CA: Soft Skull Press, 2012.

  Yousafzai, Malala. I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2013.

  See XXXI for Babes in Toyland lyric.

  XXXVI

  Barron, James. “Nation Reels After Gunman Massacres 20 Children at School in Connecticut.” The New York Times, December 14, 2012.

  Dickinson, Emily. The Gorgeous Nothings: Emily Dickinson’s Envelope Poems. New York: New Directions/Christine Burgin, 2013.

  Hunt, Elle. “Chris Kraus: I Love Dick Was Written ‘In a Delirium.’ ” The Guardian, May 29, 2017.

  Kraus, Chris. Video Green: Los Angeles and the Triumph of Nothingness. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e)/Active Agents, 2004. Kraus briefly discussed craft and the fiction, autofiction, and memoir conundrum that mostly plagues women who write at a reading in NYC in support of Video Green that I attended in 2004.

  Lorde, Audre. Zami: A New Spelling of My Name—A Biomythography. Toronto: Crossing Press, 1982.

  McGaugh, Luther S. Temple Houston and the Soiled Dove Speech. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016.

  Ono, Yoko. Grapefruit. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000.

  Princenthal, Nancy. Agnes Martin: Her Life and Art. London: Thames & Hudson, 2015.

  Ruefle, Mary. Madness, Rack, and Honey: Collected Lectures. Seattle: Wave Books, 2012.

  On May 22, 2015, Mary Ruefle was a guest of Portland State University’s seminar partnership with Tin House at The Little Church in Portland, Oregon. That Q&A and her reading are cited in this book, covering issues of erasure poems, art, and her famous quote about a poem knocking on her head like the urge to go pee.

  Solanas, Valerie. SCUM Manifesto. Chico, CA: AK Press, 2013.

  XXXVII

  Caspar, Barbara, dir. Who’s Afraid of Kathy Acker? 2008; Austria/Germany: Cameo Film—und Fernsehproduktion.

  Engel, Marian. Bear. Boston: Nonpareil Books. David R Godine, 2003.

  Heraclitus. The Fragments of Heraclitus. Overland Park, KS: Digireads Publishing, 2013.

  Mitchell, Alanna. The Spinning Magnet: The Electromagnetic Force That Created the Modern World—and Could Destroy It. New York: Dutton, 2018.

  XXXVIII

  Drew, Liam. I, Mammal: The Story of What Makes Us Mammals. New York: Bloomsbury Sigma, 2018.

  McGaugh, Luther S. Temple Houston and the Soiled Dove Speech. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016.

  Myles, Eileen. Afterglow (a dog memoir). New York: Grove Press, 2017.

  I read Afterglow in the final stages of editing, instantly struck with the passages about a rapist’s mental, spiritual, and psychological demise for breaking open someone’s sacred “envelope.” The conversations I have with my children about their bodies in this chapter and my own repetitive envelope imagery cross-stitched as a postscript with Myles’s book in a way that was eerie and necessary and worthy of citation. You can and do heal, your position may even be that of a forgiver, if you so wish, while an abuser/predator/rapist, an envelope ripper, remains the thief of your mourned safety and innocence, which is a certain kind of death.

  Wise Brown, Margaret. The Runaway Bunny. New York: Harper & Row, 1942.

  XXXIX

  Ackerman, Chantal, dir. Jeanne Dielman, 23 Commerce Quay, 1080 Brussels. 1975; Belgium/France: Paradise Films.

  Burleigh, Nina. “Sexting, Shame and Suicide: A shocking tale of sexual assault in the Digital Age.” Rolling Stone, September 17, 2013.

  Griffin, Susan. Bending Home: Selected & New Poems 1967–1998. Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 1998.

  Marnell, Cat. How to Murder Your Life: A Memoir. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2017.

  Tan, Amy. The Joy Luck Club. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1989.

  XXXXI

  Adler, Renata. Speedboat. New York: NYRB Classics, 2013.

  De Palma, Brian, dir. Scarface. 1983; Burbank, CA: Universal Pictures.

  Hesse, Eva. Diaries. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2016.

  See XXII for Sappho.

  XXXXII

  See XI for more on the Siege of Leningrad.

  *English is my second language—shame-ridden at the start; now, my proud, fast sister, the mile-marker and skin-maker for a vaporized legacy.

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  Copyright © 2019 by Sophia Shalmiyev

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  Interior design by Carly Loman

  Jacket design by Nakim

  Front Cover Photograph Provided Courtesy of the Author

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Pfaff-Shalmiyev, Sophia, 1978- author.

  Title: Mother winter : a memoir / Sophia Shalmiyev.

  Description: First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition. | New York : Simon & Schuster, 2019.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018016724| ISBN 9781501193088 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781501193095 (trade paper) | ISBN 9781501193101 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Pfaff-Shalmiyev, Sophia, 1978- | Pfaff-Shalmiyev, Sophia, 1978—Family. | Russians—Oregon—Biography. | Immigrants—Oregon—Biography. | Mothers and daughters—Russia (Federation)—Biography. | Return migration—Russia (Federation)—Biography.

  Classification: LCC F885.R9 P43 2019 | DDC 305.9/06912—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018016724

  ISBN 978-1-5011-9308-8

  ISBN 978-1-5011-9310-1 (ebook)