Russian Silver Age Poetry

Sibelan Forrester teaches Russian language and literature as well as a regular Translation Workshop at Swarthmore College. She has published numerous articles on Russian poetry (especially Marina Tsvetaeva), and Russian folklore. Her translation of Vladimir Propp’s book The Russian Folktale was published by Wayne State University Press in 2012. She also translates contemporary Russian poetry, most recently that of Maria Stepanova, and her translations of Elena Ignatova’s poetry, Воздушный колокол/The Diving Bell, were published in 2006 by Zephyr Press. She is co-editor of a book of articles on Russian literature, Engendering Slavic Literatures (Indiana UP, 1996, with Pamela Chester) and of a book of articles on East European literature and culture, Over the Wall/After the Fall (Indiana UP, 2004, with Magdalena Zaborowska and Elena Gapova).

“It being dauntingly impossible to do justice in translation to that great world treasure that is the Poetry of the Russian Silver Age, editors and translators Forrester and Kelly have given us something more — selections of best existing translations are here amended by new ones and framed within their wider cultural context — the contribution that poets have always made to their culture and age — as critics, essayist, and yes, historians. A valuable personal discovery for myself was Mayakovsky’s touching tribute on the death of Velimir Khlebnikov (1922). This much needed book promises to become indispensable to students and experts alike."