Jake Kennedy | The Rublev Horse

Jake Kennedy

The Rublev Horse

Kentville, Nova Scotia, Canada: Gaspereau Press, 2021

[32] pp., 20 x 14.5 cm., staple-bound

Edition of 400

Speaking about his 1966 historical drama Andrei Rublev, Andrei Tarkovsky said: 

“I’d like to point out the film ends with an image of horses in the rain. It is a symbolic image as the horse for me is a synonym for life. When I’m looking at a horse, I have a feeling I’m in direct contact with the essence of life itself. Perhaps it’s because the horse is a very beautiful animal, friendly to man, and is moreover so characteristic of the Russian landscape. There are many scenes with horses in Rublev. Take the scene in which a man dies after an unsuccessful attempt to fly. A sad-looking horse is a silent witness to the scene. The presence of horses in the last, final scene means that life itself was the source of all of Rublev’s art.”

In this chapbook, Jake Kennedy aims his turn-of-phrase at untangling the many horses in the Russian epic, in a poem by Mahmoud Darwish ("the horse is not symbolic because it's skin is more polished than your dining room table") and on holiday with his family ("my mother sings with the horses"). 

Available from the publisher for only $4.95 CDN, here. 

Jake Kennedy's poetry has appeared in The Malahat Review, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and Best American Experimental Writing. He is also the author of three collections of poetry: The Lateral (Snare Books), Apollinaire's Speech to the War Medic (Book*hug), and Merz Structure No. 2 Burnt by Children at Play (Book*hug). Kennedy is the recipient of the Robin Blaser Award, the Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Writing, and the bpnichol Chapbook Award.