Description
A Life in the Day of Yevich Romanov is a rural comedy in the ancient poetry form of the epic. It tells the story of a Russian-created scarecrow and his wife Nadya Nadezhda Bukharinovna Romanov of that Nik, and the imminent birth of their first child.
It surveys Yevich’s trout fishing, the scarecrowness of his scarecrow work in the Saddleback Hills of Ephanerothee, his childhood with his brothers, his metaphysical searching, his Christian resolution, his first meeting with his musician wife-to-be Nadya, his drug-dealing pop musician gangland brother Python, his seeing his own face in a coffee machine fascia, singing of himself, his occasional flair for poetry, his awkwardness with English, and his projections for his little son, the Scaretit, working as a scarecrow like himself, hanging on that cross of wooden arms in lonesome fields of beet.
This is the restoration of the centuries-dead epic poem, a form that goes back to the story-telling bards of the Greeks and Romans.
There are accreditations from Ted Hughes Poetry Award winner Maggie Sawkins and other well-published poets. The foreword by Raymond Keene, chess grandmaster and correspondent of the Sunday Telegraph, says of it, “In his new work Christopher Sparkes seeks to revive the Epic and imbue it with the breath of modern life … Yevich Romanov follows in the footsteps of Homer’s Odysseus, the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf and other heroes of the genre, which typically create the totality of the life of a man … We are increasingly recognising the value of deep engagement with the thoughts, knowledge and creations of other people, both from the distant past and in our present age, as demonstrated in Sparkes’s creation of A Life in the Day of Yevich Romanov.”
A Life in the Day of Yevich Romanov narrates the rural charms and otherwise of the daily and seasonal work of the scarecrow, trout fishing, scarecrow pregnancy, agriculture, urban materialism, resistance, scarecrow childhood and family, violence, drug dealing, gangland murder, scarecrow wedding, scarecrow lovemaking, Revolution, literary and classical allusions, Virgil, Homer, Gilbert White, Shakespeare, the Bible, Edmund Waller, Kerouac, Brautigan, Solzhenitsyn, ornithology, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Czech, Russian, made-up words, regional words, philosophy, angst, good diet, Christian conversion, family feud, scarecrow construction, scarecrow midwifery and birth, scarecrow breastfeeding, resistance to pharmaceuticals, Ekaterinburg history, scarecrow aspirations, scarecrow salvation of the land, list of epics, preface by the author, foreword by Raymond Keene chess grandmaster, poets’ accreditations, glossary, and an afterword.
Christopher Sparkes is translator of The Keys of the Kingdom Holy Bible, and other related Biblical works. He has published poetry, short fiction, academic essays on Chaucer, poetry and stylistics, reviews, and artworks. He is co-author of text books on writing and grammar.
A Life in the Day of Yevich Romanov is published by Filament Publishing, London. 120 pages. ISBN 978-1-915465-87-0. The cover design is by Niamh Craigie.
WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING
It makes you want to weep. This is liquid gold. ~ Sarah Lucas
This poem enhances the love story between two Russian scarecrows, Yevich Romanov and his wife Nadya who is expecting their first scaretit. When the gift of fatherhood comes along, Yevich becomes a scarecrow, in a different key. There are also dark moments when he ponders on the death of his brother Python. The lines are laced with comedy and clever references and conversations between the couple which are spoken in awkward English add to the charm of the piece. Like any expectant father, the scarecrow is on tenterhooks throughout Nadya’s long labour, but when, finally, his son Goo-Gaga is born, he is overjoyed; it gives him a new perspective in life and he offers a prayer up for the child thing hoping that he may be a blessing and not a curse. ~ Denise Bennett
A feast of tactile rhythms and chewy language. Oracular lines of poetry flow in a vernacular speech spiced with grandeur, honouring a great resonant subject, the birth of perhaps a redeemer. Extraordinary. ~ George Marsh
Original, inventive, with linguistic somersaults taking centre stage on every page, who’d imagine a humble scarecrow being raised to such literary heights? Chris Sparkes has created a heart-felt tour de force in his Life in the Day of Yevich Romanov. Scaretits, hold on tight to your straw hats! ~ Maggie Sawkins, winner of Ted Hughes Poetry Award, 2014
This is a love story that compels like no other: a tour de force of impressive linguistic invention and laugh-out-loud playfulness ‘in the year of who-knows-when’. Sheer delight! ~ Robyn Bolam.
