Selected Poems

"If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold I know no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry." - Maria Tsvetaeva

Weariness and beauty permeate the poetry of Maria Tsvetaeva. She struggled with life and love, but endured, supported in part by fellow artists, most notably Mandelstam, Rilke and Pasternak. The poetry in this selection is arrayed in chronological order and ranges from the "starry nights, in the apple orchards of Paradise"(p 5) to the "muffled blow" of Epitaph (p 106). Inspiration from fellow poets Mayakovsky, Blok and Akhmatova impress upon the reader her poetic muse and mystery. I like the poetry infused with literary references, Shakespeare and others, as this is a type that I share with her - in my own humble way. She has a way of making the simplest image seem to embody meaning beyond the possibilities of a finite world. She suggests this and more in lines like:

"a manifestly yellow, decidedly
rusty leaf--has been left behind on the tree." (p 120) ( )