Elena Shvarts was the most outstanding Russian poet of her
generation. Birdsong on the Seabed presents a selection of her
later poetry. Shvarts brought out four new collections in Russian
after the publication by Bloodaxe in 1993 of 'Paradise': Selected
Poems, the first English edition of her poetry and also a Poetry
Book Society Recommended Translation. This second bilingual
Russian-English selection of her work also includes some poems
unpublished in Russia at the time. Sasha Dugdale's translation of
Birdsong on the Seabed was shortlisted for both the Rossica
Translation Prize and the Corneliu M. Popescu Award for European
Poetry in Translation. Elena Shvarts stood outside all schools and
movements in contemporary Russian poetry. She once famously
described poetry as a 'dance without legs'. Her own poetry fits
this description perfectly, a combination of deeply rhythmic and
lyrical dance with the eccentric, perpetual movement of flight. The
world of her poems is strange and grotesque; often the setting is
urban, but unrecognisable - towns emptied of the everyday and
peopled only by animals, spirits and strange elemental forces. A
peculiar religious fervour illuminates these scenes, but her
religion is unorthodox and highly individual. Shvarts' poetry is
visionary. Her vision takes her to the edge of language and rhythm,
and she was one of the few contemporary poets brave enough to trust
her vision absolutely. Poetry Book Society Recommended Translation
General
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