Paradise: Selected Poems

by Elena Shvarts, Michael Molnar (Translator), Catriona Kelly (Translator)

Each new generation has to reinterpret St. Petersburg, the place, the culture, and its significance for Russia. Shvarts' haunted and demonic city is nearer Dostoyevsky's than Akhmatova's or Brodsky's. Her poetry draws backwoods, Russian folklore with its cruelty, its religiosity and its quaint humor, into cosmopolitan Petropolis. She shows both the truth and the irony of Peter the Great's 'Paradise', celebrating and reviling her native city as a crossroads of dimensions, a reality riddled with mythical monuments and religious symbols. A dual text Russian-English edition, this is a Poetry Book Society Recommended Translation.

Genres: Poetry

144 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1994

About the author

Elena Shvarts (Russian: Елена Шварц; 1948–2010) published sixteen books of poetry and prose, plus a four-volume collected works during her lifetime. She was a major figure in the Leningrad underground and became widely known and translated after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Reviews

[Álvaro · Rating 2.25 out of 5]

Встань — не стыдно при всех-то спать? / Встань — ведь скоро пора воскресать / Крематорий — вот выбрала место для сна! / Встань — поставлю я шкалик вина / Господи, отблеск в витрине — я это и есть?...

'Вы ловитесь на то же, что и все / Вино, амур, ням-ням, немного славы / Не надо вам изысканней отравы / Вы душу отдаете как во сне' / Так старый бес мне говорил, зевая / И сплевывая грешных шелуху / И за ногу меня в мешок швыряя.

(Нравились: Как эта улица зовется, Детский сад через тридцать лет, Черная пасха: 2-3, Два аспекта, Книга на окне, Подражание Буало, Коляска забытая у магазина, Воспонимание о странном угощении, Элегии на стороны света; Восточная, Распродажа библиотеки историка, Любовь как третье, Труды и дни монахини Лавинии; особ. 13-29-39-79).

One very enjoyable little collection, wonderfully translated. Tiny bursts of spiritual and folkish autobiographies paralelled with introspective depictions of urban occurrences. The brutish, daring structure of the poems stood out to me. The poems about St Petersburg and the closing 'Works of Lavinia' were particularly nice, I invite readers of Russian to check the whole thing.
https://vtoraya-literatura.com/pdf/sh...

All credits due to Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana for discarding this book/item.

[Yousseif Abdellatif · Rating 3 out of 5]

Look, Paradise: Selected Poems is a ridiculous, joyful mess, and I loved most of it. Elena Shvarts throws a rogue wedding planner, a bear in a minivan, and a very patient groom into one chaotic weekend, and the scene where the whole party tries to coax the bear out with cocktail weenies is the funniest thing I've read in months. The jokes start to repeat near the end. For readers who like their comedy big and weird. Pass if you need things to make sense.