Би гуниглан сууна.

Би гуниглан сууна.

Чи гуниглан сууна.

Бид хамтдаа гуниглахад

Шөнө болдог.

Үлгэр ярьж унтуулсан бяцхан хүүхдүүдийнхээ

үсээр нь байшин барьж

Одоо чи инээвэл уначихна.

Одоо би инээвэл хийсчихна гээд л

Хоёр биенээ тас тэврэн хэн хэн маань дуугүй

Хорвоо дээр нэг хүн болж гунигладаг.

Би чимээгүй

Чи чимээгүй

Биднийг тэврэлдэхэд ӨГЛӨӨ болдог.

* * *

Эрдэнэт Хот

Эрдэнэт Хот

Орилоон, хашгираан, тарчлаан

Олж болох ариун бүхнийг би энд мэдэрсэн.

Зовж байна эсвэл жаргаж байна ч гэж бодоогүй дээ

Зогсоол бүр дээр нь буухад

адилхан маргаашт л хүрнэ гэж итгэсэн

Үнэндээ миний бодсон шиг

арийн байгаагүй ч

Үхэн үхтэлээ

энгийн л амьдарч болох

ХОТ

Мартагдах шахцан өнгөрсөндөө амьдарч

Бүрлээчийг магтан дуулдаг гудамжны парадтай нь ч

зэрэрцэн алхаж болно.

Ариун сүмийн хонх оршин суугчдынх нь

нүдэн дотор хангинахад

Алгаа хавсран залбираад үхцэн загац шиг чимээгүй

улам гүнд нь живж болох

ГУНИГТ ХОТ

Үдшийн наран яаж жаргадагийг

тэнүүлчид нь яруу найрагчдаас нь илүү мэдэрдэг

Үзэсгэлэн хотод минь зуун жил амьдраад ч

Үнэндээ гэгээрэлд хүрч эс чадах

Өдөр бүхэн дурсамжийн парадад нь ёслол төгөлдөр оролцож

Өчигрийн талийгчийг эцсийн замд нь үдэх

Хамгийн сүүлчийн цуваа

Амарын талбайгаас хөдлөхөд л

Хачин гунигт хот минь

Ямар ариун болохын мэдэрнэ.

by KG Hutchins and Jessica Pískatá

These poems are taken from Lkhagvasüren Lamjav’s latest book, published in Mongolian in 2019, Үндэс (Root). Throughout this collection, she uses lyrical poetry to reflect on living and raising a family in the central Mongolian industrial mining city of Erdenet. 

Classical Mongolian poetry makes use of alliterative verse, effectively building the rhyme based on the first letter, rather than the final sound. Lkhagvasüren plays with this tradition, building up consonance across verses before introducing a word or phrase that intentionally breaks with the established pattern. In both poems, these disruptions structurally echo thematic disruptions, whether as a disruption in a familial relationship or the social disruption of the imposition of a mining economy on the nomadic steppe.

In the first poem, Lkhagvasüren unspools a small, silent moment of care into a meditation on parenthood. The family is, in a way, a fragile thing that must be attended to with tenderness.

In the second poem, Lkhagvasüren reflects on life in the city of Erdenet. Her recollection is sentimental but without nostalgia, with declarations like, “It was simply a place for dying, after having lived.” Erdenet is one of the largest cities in Mongolia, though tiny compared to the capital, Ulaanbaatar. Yet it is also one of the youngest, having only been established in 1974 to house a joint Soviet-Mongolian mining operation over a massive copper deposit. As Lkhagvasüren narrates throughout this poem, life in the post-socialist mining town is “Silent as a fish crushed by hands clasped in prayer.” Yet, she leaves it with the possibility of a redemptive future.

Lkhagvasüren Lamjav is a poet and short story author originally from Zavkhan province, Mongolia. After publishing her first book, Танихгүй ертөнцөд илгээх миний нэрийн хуудас (Business Cards to Send to the Unknown Universe) in 2009, she went on to complete a degree in social work at the National University of Mongolia in 2013. She currently resides in Australia, where she has been a Scholarly Fellow at Flinders University since 2018. In 2019, she released a book of lyrical poetry titled Үндэс (Root).  

KG Hutchins is a Visiting Assistant Professor of anthropology at Oberlin College. He has been studying the Mongolian language since 2008 and has worked as an English teacher in Mongolia in 2011 and from 2016 to 2018 before receiving his PhD in cultural anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2020. His translations of Mongolian fiction and poetry have been published in literary translation journals including Words Without Borders.

Jessica Madison Pískatá is a Visiting Assistant Professor of anthropology at Oberlin College. Between completing her MFA in poetry at the New School in 2010 and her PhD in cultural anthropology at the University of California at Santa Cruz in 2021, Pískatá served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Baruun-Urt, Mongolia, from 2011 to 2013. She translated the poems of Dariganga Mongolian poet O. Dashbalbar and published them in Sapiens as a multi-modal format under Grass Trilogy.