Marina Tsvetaeva

Sbornik stikhotvorenij "Moj rytsar" sostavlen iz dvukh samykh rannikh knig Mariny Tsvetaevoj "Vechernij albom" (1910) i "Volshebnyj fonar" (1912). Eschjo gimnazistkoj VII klassa, tajno ot vsekh i tajno ot ottsa, vzjav s soboj tolstuju tetrad pod nazvaniem "Vechernij albom", ona otpravilas v tipografiju, uverennaja, chto sredi morja poezii tekh let, ejo knigu ne zametjat. No zametili. V serjoznom vzroslom zhurnale "Apollon" napechatal otzyv poet Nikolaj Gumiljov: "... Eta kniga - ne tolko milaja kniga devicheskikh priznanij, no i kniga prekrasnykh stikhov". On poradovalsja ikh "nepoddelnoj detskosti", tomu, chto pochti ne skhodit so stranits slovo "mama", otmetil i sovsem novye dlja poezii temy: detskaja vljubljonnost, vnimanie k podrobnostjam detskoj zhizni. No samoj pervoj pojavilas "bolshaja privetstvennaja statja" Maksimiliana Voloshina. On uvidel iskrennost avtora i nabljudatelnost v opisanii zhizni, a glavnoe - umenie napisat o detstve iz detstva. I strana, opisannaja v knige, byla, kak v detstve, - i volshebnaja, i realnaja odnovremenno. Knigu etu, schital on, nado vosprinimat kak dnevnik. My popadaem v tsarstvo, gde vsjudu - mama i gde mozhno pod zvuki prekrasnoj muzyki - maminoj igry na rojale - chitat uvlekatelnye knizhki samoj ili chitat vslukh dlja Asi kakuju-nibud strashnuju skazku. A mozhno na beregu morja stroit krepost. Skolko prikljuchenij i sobytij, skolko istorij o detskoj ljubvi i sopernichestve dvukh sestjor - i kazhdoe - vazhnoe, o kazhdom nado skazat v dnevnike! I zharkoe priznanie: kakoe "schaste zhit na svete"!

Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva (1892-1941), nesomnenno, odna iz samykh izvestnykh russkikh poetess Serebrjanogo veka, che tvorchestvo pokorjaet glubinoj i iskrennostju chuvstv. V prozaicheskuju chast dannogo izdanija voshli avtobiograficheskie proizvedenija ("Dom u Starogo Pimena", "Zhenikh", "Kitaets" i dr.) i traktaty ob iskusstve i poezii ("Iskusstvo pri svete sovesti", "Poet o kritike", "Poet i vremja" i dr.). V poeticheskuju chast voshli ee luchshie stikhotvorenija: "Moim stikham, napisannym tak rano...", "Mne kazhetsja, chto vy bolny ne mnoj...", "My s toboju lish dva otgoloska..." i dr.

After Russia (1928) is considered to mark the high point in Marina Tsvetaeva's output of shorter, lyrical poems. Tsvetaeva told Boris Pasternak that all that mattered in the book was its anguish. Breathtaking technical mastery and experimentation are underpinned by suicidal thoughts, a sense of exclusion from the circle of human love and companionship, and an increasing alienation from life itself. The sequence `Trees' evokes the hills and woods of Bohemia where Tsvetaeva loved to roam, while `Wires' takes telegraph wires as the central image for the geographical distance separating her from Pasternak.

Literary Nonfiction. Translated from the Russian by A'Dora Phillips & Gaelle Cogan. Introduction by Catherine Ciepiela. Like many of Marina Tsvetaeva's essays and poems, LETTER TO THE AMAZON is addressed to another writer, in this case Natalie Clifford Barney, a wealthy American expatriate in Paris. Though written in 1932, Tsvetaeva's letter was in response to what Barney said about lesbian relationships and motherhood in her 1920 Pensees dune Amazone (Thoughts of an Amazon). Tsvetaeva uses her essay to emphasize what is to her mind a general truth of lesbian relationships (i.e. they cannot endure because of a woman's innate desire for a child) and to explore her seemingly agonized feelings about Sophia Parnok, the Russian poet with whom she fell in love in 1914, when Tsvetaeva was twenty-two and Parnok twenty-nine."

".... The fact of the matter is that everything that happens in culture ultimately comes down to this, to the four famous temperaments: melancholic, sanguine, phlegmatic, and choleric. That's what I think. It seems to me that our Big Four can also be divided by according to these temperaments, inasmuch as all of them are actually very distinctly represented in the group. Tsvetaeva is unquestionably the choleric author. Pasternak is sanguine. Mandelstam is melancholic. And Akhmatova is phlegmatic. Together they cover the whole poetic universe."-Joseph BrodskyIncluded in this dual-language book is a selection of 10 poems from each poet translated into English by Andrey Kneller.

"A poet of genius."--Vladimir Nabokov Via what Ilya Kaminsky and Jean Valentine call "readings"--not translations--of fragments of Marina Tsvetaeva's poems and prose, Tsvetaeva's lyrical genius is made accessible and poignant to a new generation of readers. By juxtaposing fragments of her poems with short pieces of prose, we begin to know her as poet, friend, enemy, woman, lover, and revolutionary. From "Poems for Moscow (2)" From my hands--take this city not made by hands, my strange, my beautiful brother. Take it, church by church--all forty times forty churches, and flying up over them, the small pigeons; And Spassky Gates--in their flower-- where the Orthodox take off their hats; And the Chapel of Stars--refuge chapel-- where the floor is--polished by tears; Take the circle of the five cathedrals, my soul, my holy friend. Marina Tsvetaeva was born in Moscow in 1892 and died in 1941. Her poetry stands among the greatest works of twentieth century Russian writers. Ilya Kaminsky is the author of Dancing in Odessa (Tupelo Press, 2004) which won the Whiting Writers' Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Metcalf Award, the Dorset Prize, and the Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship awarded annually by Poetry magazine. Jean Valentine won the Yale Younger Poets award for Dream Barker in 1965. Her eleventh book of poetry is Break the Glass, from Copper Canyon Press. Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems 1965-2003 was the winner of the 2004 National Book Award for Poetry.

Marina Tsvetaeva (1892-1941) ranks with Anna Akhmatova, Osip Mandelstam, and Boris Pasternak as one of Russia's greatest twentieth-century poets. Her suicide at the age of forty-eight was the tragic culmination of a life beset by loss and hardship. This volume presents for the first time in English a collection of essays published in the Russian émigré press after Tsvetaeva left Moscow in 1922. Based on diaries she kept from 1917 to 1920, Earthly Signs describes the broad social, economic, and cultural chaos provoked by the Bolshevik Revolution. Events and individuals are seen through the lens of her personal experience-that of a destitute young woman of upper-class background with two small children (one of whom died of starvation), a missing husband, and no means of support other than her poetry. These autobiographical writings, rich sources of information on Tsvetaeva and her literary contemporaries, are also significant for the insights they provide into the sources and methodology of her difficult poetic language. In addition, they supply a unique eyewitness account of a dramatic period in Russian history, told by a gifted and outspoken poet.

Marina Tsvetaeva (1892-1941) was one of the four great Russian poets of the 20th century, along with Akhmatova, Mandelstam and Pasternak. She also wrote outstanding prose. Endowed with 'phenomenally heightened linguistic sensitivity' (Joseph Brodsky), Tsvetaeva was primarily concerned with the nature of poetic creation and what it means to be a poet. Among the most exciting of all explorations of this theme are the essays 'Art in the Light of Conscience', her spirited defence of poetry; 'The Poet on the Critic', which earned her the enmity of many; and 'The Poet and Time', the key to understanding her work. Her richly diverse essays provide incomparable insights into poetry, the poetic process, and what it means to be a poet. This book includes, among many fascinating topics, a celebration of the poetry of Pasternak ('Downpour of Light') and reflections on the lives and works of other Russian poets, such as Mandelstam and Mayakovsky, as well as a magnificent study of Zhukovsky's translation of Goethe's 'Erlking'. Even during periods of extreme personal hardship, her work retained its sense of elated energy and humour, and Angela Livingstone's translations bring the English-speaking reader as close as possible to Tsvetaeva's inimitable voice. First published in English in 1992, "Art in the Light of Conscience" includes an introduction by the translator, textual notes and a glossary, as well as revised translations of 12 poems by Tsvetaeva on poets and poetry.

When Elaine Feinstein first read the poems of Marina Tsvetaeva in Russian in the 1960s, the encounter transformed her. 'What drew me to her initially,' she writes, 'was the intensity of her emotions, and the honesty with which she exposed them.' Her translations, first published to great acclaim in 1971, introduced Tsvetaeva to English readers. It was the start of Feinstein's continuing engagement with a poet who has been an enduring, challenging inspiration to her, and whose life she has written. To this enlarged edition Elaine Feinstein adds five major pieces. 'Girlfriend', a sequence of lyrics, was written for Tsvetaeva's lover Sofia Parnok. In 'New Year's Greetings' she responded to the death of Rainer Maria Rilke. 'On a Red Horse' is a dramatic fairytale of power and cruelty. 'Wires', of which two lyrics were included in the earlier edition, now appears in full; and a previously omitted lyric from 'Poem of the End' has been translated. With a new introduction, notes and bibliography of works in English, "Bride of Ice" brings Tsvetaeva to a new generation of readers.

"Krupnee Tsvetaevoj v nashem stoletii net poeta", - skazal o Marine Tsvetaevoj Iosif Brodskij. Ne zabotjas o granitsakh dozvolennogo, Tsvetaeva vpustila v poeziju stikhijnoe nachalo. Oshelomljajuschij temperament v sochetanii s neobyknovennym ritmicheskim raznoobraziem - otlichitelnye cherty tsvetaevskoj liriki. Odna "za vsekh" i odna "protivu vsekh". Ona ne prinadlezhala ni k odnoj poeticheskoj shkole, ne priznavala literaturnykh vlijanij - tolko chelovecheskie. I, naperekor neponimaniju, odinochestvu i nischenskomu "stopudovomu" bytu, vsegda ostavalas vnutrenne svobodnoj. Kak pisala o nej Bella Akhmadulina, "ona byla vozhdem svoej sudby, i voinstva uma i dukha sledovali za etim vozhdem". V knigu vkljucheny izbrannye stikhotvorenija M. I. Tsvetaevoj raznykh let.

Tsvetaeva always regarded the narrative poem as her true challenge, and she created powerful and intensely original works in the genre. They can be seen as markers of various stages in her poetic development, ranging from the early, folk-accented "On a Red Steed" to the lyrical-confessional "Poem of the Mountain" and "Poem of the End" to the more metaphysical later poems, "An Attempt at a Room," a beautiful requiem for Rainer Maria Rilke, "New Year's Greetings," and "Poem of the Air," a stirring celebration of Lindbergh's transatlantic flight and the quest for the soul's freedom.

Milestones is an apt title for this collection, for the 84 poems within show a poet passing from mere talent into mastery of her craft. Composed between January and December 1916, these poems find the 24-year-old Tsvetaeva thirsting for the fullness of life while at the same time contemplating the inevitability of death - a theme she was to revisit many times in her career. Tsvetaeva's work of the time also reflects her knowledge of (and pride in) her native culture, especially the centrality of Moscow - which was the ultimate destination of all Russians. Throughout these verses she opens up the sensual wonders of nature - sky, forest, wind and not least her beloved daughter Alya, who would come to figure greatly in the work and legacy of her mother.

An acclaimed translation of the best work of the passionate Russian poet An admired contemporary of Rilke, Akhmatova, and Mandelstam, Marina Tsvetaeva was a witness to the political turmoil and the social devastation wrought by the Russian Revolution and a powerfully inspired chronicler of a difficult life and exile sustained by poetry. Pasternak "was immediately overcome by the immense lyrical power of her poetic form. It... had spring living from experience--personal, and neither narrow-chested nor short of breath from line to line but rich and compact and enveloping" For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.