Black Earth Selected Poems And Prose

Russia’s foremost modernist master in a major new translation Osip Mandelstam has become an almost mythical figure of modern Russian poetry, his work treasured all over the world for its lyrical beauty and innovative, revolutionary engagement with the dark times of the Stalinist era. While he was exiled in the city of Voronezh, the black earth region of Russia, his work, as Joseph Brodsky wrote, developed into “a poetry of high velocity and exposed nerves, becoming more a song than ever before, not a bardlike but a birdlike song … something like a goldfinch tremolo.” Peter France—who has been brilliantly translating Mandelstam’s work for decades—draws heavily from Mandelstam’s later poetry written in Voronezh, while also including poems across the whole arc of the poet’s tragically short life, from his early, symbolist work to the haunting elegies of old Petersburg to his defiant “Stalin poem.” A selection of Mandelstam’s prose irradiates the poetry with warmth and insight as he thinks back on his Petersburg childhood and contemplates his Jewish heritage, the sunlit qualities of Hellenism, Dante’s Tuscany, and the centrality of poetry in society.

A new selection and translation of the work of Osip Mandelstam, perhaps the most important Russian poet of the twentieth century Political nonconformist Osip Mandelstam's opposition to Stalin's totalitarian government made him a target of the communist state. The public recitation of his 1933 poem known in English as "The Stalin Epigram" led to his arrest, exile, and eventual imprisonment in a Siberian transit camp, where he died, presumably in 1938. Mandelstam's work—much of it written under extreme duress—is an extraordinary testament to the enduring power of art in the face of oppression and terror. Stolen Air spans Mandelstam's entire poetic career, from his early highly formal poems in which he reacted against Russian Symbolism to the poems of anguish and defiant abundance written in exile, when Mandelstam became a truly great poet. Aside from the famous early poems, which have a sharp new vitality in Wiman's versions, Stolen Air includes large selections from The Moscow Notebooks and The Voronezh Notebooks. Going beyond previous translators who did not try to reproduce Mandelstam's music, Christian Wiman has captured in English—for the first time—something of Mandelstam's enticing, turbulent, and utterly heartbreaking sounds.

This is an exceptional poetry collection written by Lakota students in the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth grades at Red Cloud Indian School on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. The historic school was founded in 1888 at the request of Chief Red Cloud of the Oglala Lakota. The poems enable readers to learn about the unique lives and heritage of students growing up in such distinctive circumstances and straddling cultures. The collection was compiled by a teacher at the school, working with school administrators, and contains never-before-published artworks by award-winning artist S. D. Nelson. Praise for Walking on Earth and Touching the SkySTARRED REVIEW "This is an important collection that offers opportunities for insight into a culture that has too often been either ignored or misunderstood." --Booklist, starred review "A moving, fascinating glimpse across cultures. Vivid, polychromatic illustrations by Nelson accompany the students’ evocative works."--Kirkus Reviews "As a collection, the poems present an interesting, eye-opening look at the Lakota culture, which is one that is often overlooked. The paintings by S.D. Nelson are gorgeous and vibrant." --Library Media Connection Awards: New York Public Library’s Children's Books 2012: 100 Books for Reading and Sharing list HONORABLE MENTION - 2012 Aesop Accolade, American Folklore Society Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People 2013

This book introduces us to female perspectives on nature. Over 90 selections, from Emily Dickinson to Alice Walker, span a century and encompass the voices of a variety of women--some known for their writing on nature, and several outstanding new voices

A bilingual collection of poetry by the German poet considered by many the major European poet since 1945 features a selection of lyrics, previously unpublished poems, and essays and speeches dealing with his Jewish heritage, alienation from society, and the nature of writing. Reprint.

This is the first book-length collection in English of the literary works of Lorenzo de&’Medici, the major poetic voice of the Florentine Resistance. Lorenzo de&’Medici (1449-92) was the ruler of Florence and the principal statesman of his time. A contemporary of Columbus, Lorenzo is hardly known in the English-speaking world as a major Quattrocento writer, author of a large and varied body of poetry as well as an important literary treatise. His poetry and patronage were instrumental in renewing the vernacular literature of his age after a period of stagnation. That Lorenzo&’s literary writings were for the most part never translated is a fascinating curiosity of history, attributable to the irreverent, bawdy subject matter of many of his poems, objections to his authoritarian politics, and the unconventional features of his poetic realism. Yet Lorenzo is now seen as the most interesting exponent of the cultural renaissance that he encouraged. His longer poems in particular reveal the central concerns, everyday activities, and favorite ideas of his day. No other Florentine writer succeeds in capturing as he does the beauty, seasonal changes, and rhythms of life of the Tuscan countryside. His poetic realism is that which sets him apart from his age, yet makes him such a vivid portrayer of it. The availability of his works in English will serve to modify and enlarge our conception of the Florentine Renaissance.