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Translated By Steven Seymour

To converse with the greats

by trying their blindfolds on;

to correspond with books

by rewriting them;

to edit holy edicts,

and at the midnight hour

to talk with the clock by tapping a wall

in the solitary confinement of the universe.

Source: Poetry (January 2010).

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MORE FROM THIS ISSUE

This poem originally appeared in the January 2010 issue of Poetry magazine

• More Featherishly Purple
  by Michael Hofmann
• Blood Memory
  by V. Penelope Pelizzon
• The Grand Hotel
  by Joshua Mehigan

• January 2010 Table of Contents
• Subscribe to Poetry magazine
• About Poetry magazine
• Buy This Issue

More about this poem

Biography

Vera Pavlova was born in Moscow. She graduated from the Gnessin Academy, specializing in the history of music, and is the author of fourteen collections of poetry, four opera librettos, and lyrics to two cantatas. Her works have been translated into eighteen languages. The poems in this issue are from her first collection in English, If There Is Something to Desire, published this month by Alfred A. Knopf.

Continue reading this biography

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Poems by Vera Pavlova

• Am I lovely? Of course!
• He marked the page with a match
• I am in love, hence free to live
• Multiplying in a column M by F
• Only she who has breast-fed

• More poems by Vera Pavlova (7 poems)
  • Those who are asleep in the earth
  • When the very last grief

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Poem Categorization

SUBJECT Living, Time & Brevity, Arts & Sciences, Reading & Books

Poetic Terms Free Verse

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Related

Audio

• Poetry Lectures: Vera Pavlova & Valzhyna Mort: International Poets in Conversation

Video

• First Collection in English of Best-Selling Russian Poet

Events

• Poetry off the Shelf: Music/Words: Inna Faliks, Valzhyna Mort, and Vera Pavlova

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