Contemporary Russian Poetry

The work of twenty-three poets, living in Russia and abroad and writing during the period since 1975, is highlighted in this dual-language anthology. The book features an extraordinary cohort of talented poets born in Russia between 1935 and 1940, including Bella Akhmadulina, Dmitrii Bobyshev, Joseph Brodsky, Oleg Chukhontsev, Natalya Gorbanevskaya, Aleksandr Kushner, Lev Loseff, Yunna Morits, Dmitrii Prigov, and Evgenii Rein. Older poets represented are Boris Chichibabin, Vladimir Kornilov, Bulat Okudzhava, German Plisetsky, and Boris Slutsky; a younger group includes Aleksandr Eremenko, Bakhyt Kenzheev, Yurii Kublanovsky, Aleksei Parshchikov, Olga Sedakova, Elena Shvarts, Aleksei Tsvetkov, and Ivan Zhdanov. Although the selections reveal great stylistic and thematic variety, they are linked by a common concern with the moral and ethical problems that have always engaged Russian poets but that are particularly acute in Russia's latest time of change. The texts, in Russian and in English linear translation, are arranged on facing pages. Notes, biographical sketches, a detailed bibliography, and an informative introduction make this anthology an indispensable resource for teachers, students, and readers of modern Russian literature.