Guests of Eternity

LARISSA MILLER is a major Russian lyrical poet and author of many short stories, essays and articles in periodicals, and of fourteen books, one in English translation ('Dim and Distant Days', Glas, 2000). A member of the Union of Russian Writers since 1979, and of the Russian Pen-Centre since 1992, she was short-listed in 1999 for the State Prize of the Russian Federation, having been nominated for the prize by the famous literary almanac Novyi Mir. Many poems by Larissa Miller have been set to music, in Russia by Michael Prikhod'ko (who has released three discs of songs to Miller's words), and in the UK by Helen Chadwick. In 2003, 49 of Larissa Miller's poems were put together as a theatrical 'Poetical Performance' which played at various Moscow theatres. Born in 1940 Larissa Miller graduated from the Foreign Languages Institute in Moscow and for many years worked as a teacher of English, but since 1980 she has been teaching a women's musical gymnastics system named after its creator, the renowned Russian dancer Lyudmila Alexeeva. RICHARD McKANE was born in 1947 and read Russian at Oxford, his 'Selected Poems of Anna Akhmatova' (Penguin / OUP) appearing in 1969. He lived in Turkey for six years in the 1970s, working on an archaeological dig in Kandahar, Afghanistan for some of this time. In 1978 he was awarded the Hodder Fellowship at Princeton University where he met his former wife Elizabeth, with whom he later he brought out Mandelstam's Moscow and Voronezh Notebooks. For over eighteen years, he worked as an interpreter from, and into, Turkish and Russian at the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture. As a translator, Richard McKane, working with Ruth Christie, has brought out two selections of Oktay Rifat's work, Voices of Memory and Poems and, with Talat Halman, Beyond the Walls: Poems of Nazum Hikmet; he has also translated the work of Nikolai Gumilyov, Olga Sedakova and Aronzon. As a poet, he has had two bilingual books published in Turkey, 'Turkey Poems' and 'Coffee House Poems', and a selection, 'Amphora for Matphors' in New York. Richard McKane has retired from interpreting, and now lives in the provinces, concentrating on his translation and poetry.SASHA DUGDALE has published two poetry collections, 'Notebook' (Carcanet / Oxford Poets, 2003) and 'The Estate' (Carcanet / Oxford Poets, 2007). She translates Russian plays for several theatres in the UK and the USA, her translations including 'Plasticine' by Vassilii Sigarev (winner of the Evening Standard New Play of the Year Award), 'Terrorism and Playing the Victim' by the Presnyakov Brothers and Chekhov's 'Cherry Orchard' (produced by BBC Radio in Autumn 2008). Her translations of Russian poetry are published by Bloodaxe. The most recent, a collection of poetry by Elena Shvarts entitled Birdsong on the Seabed (2008), was a PBS Recommended Translation.

• Series Editor's note. Translator's preface by Richard McKane.Introduction by Sasha Dugdale.Part I: Poems of the 60s & 70sI have only one picture, Don't scare offA... , The wind bends the trees , The day is so fragile, In the clear midday , Everything happened, Teach me simplicity, O mixed grasses, There whereA..., Do these days, It seemed all was marked, Anonymous days, I writeA... , Our life is sewnA..., And instead of graceA..., Look my darling, Not us, but the airA..., Pan is led by passionA..., Come here, Tormented by a concept, The autumn windA..., Where to run?, Get up, YashaA..., That tempo againA...Part II: Poems of the 80sBetween the cloud and the pit, RitenutoA..., I have good news, An unprecedented event, Love to the grave, To go out once from fate, There is a surprising breach, Another flight, more steps, We talk and talk, Someone's handsA..., We are guests of eternity, You are thrown into the abyss, 'Where are you going?', Not to make sense in words, First they rounded them up, So, the action takes placeA..., What do you payA...?, Do you not feel painA..., Forgive meA..., According to some secret plan, A word is a tear, Height is gained immediately, A singing clockface, Is it possible to scare mortals?, Eight linesA..., The snow sparkledA..., From the splendid acacia and lilac bushes, The autumn rains rustlePart III: Poems of the 90sThe clouds fly across the sky, MemoirsA..., A million orange streaks. Moss and fir cones, Again loss and abandonment, It's easy to go away, I write poemsA..., Again the fateful minutes, In this province of mourningA..., We live our lifeA..., You got hooked, The whip and the honeycake, The roar of the machineA..., They waited for lightA..., Let's fill in the form, Where are you from?, My life is curiouser and curiouser, It was on the very last day, Heavy daysA..., It's not worth livingA..., What is there overhead, English Lesson, They were singingA... , I'm on about my own stuffA..., The heavens are playingA..., Almighty, do not have mercy.Biographical notes.