Selected Poems

James McGavrans new translation of Vladimir Mayakovskys poetry is the first to fully capture the Futurist and Soviet agitprop artists voice. Because of his work as a propagandist for the Soviet regime, and because of his posthumous enshrinement by Stalin as the best and most talented poet of our Soviet epoch, Mayakovsky has most often been interpretedand translatedwithin a political context. McGavrans translations reveal a more nuanced poet who possessed a passion for word creation and linguistic manipulation. Mayakovskys bombastic metaphors and formal lan shine through in these translations, and McGavrans commentary provides vital information on Mayakovsky, illuminating the poets many references to the Russian literary canon, his contemporaries in art and culture, and Soviet figures and policies.