Three of the legendary Russian dissident writer's greatest poems, two autobiographical and one based on a Russian folktale, now in a new, invigorating English translation. The three poems in this collection, "Backstreets", "Poem of the Mountain" and "Poem of the End," w...

Three of the legendary Russian dissident writer's greatest poems, two autobiographical and one based on a Russian folktale, now in a new, invigorating English translation. The three poems in this collection, "Backstreets", "Poem of the Mountain" and "Poem of the End," were all written in the few short years spanning the period immediately preceding Tsvetaeva's move from the Soviet Union to Prague in 1922.

"Poem of the Mountain" and "Poem of the End" are generally considered some of her finest poems and have been translated widely; "Backstreets," initially dismissed by Russian readers as nigh unintelligible, is almost unknown in English. Andrew Davis's translation is a first, and it reveals the poem in all in its emotional intensity and poetic pyrotechnics as among Tsvetaeva's greatest achievements.

"Poem of the Mountain" and "Poem of the End" both concern the end of an affair. "Backsteets," by contrast, is a retelling of the Russian folk-tale of Dobrynya and Marinka. It is a very free retelling, however.