Selected Early Poems
Lev Loseff
Edited with an introduction by Henry W. Pickford
ISBN 978-0-923389-97-0 $20.00 300 pages
Loseff is one of the chief representatives of Russian exilic poetry, a great master of ironic postmodern verse. Pickford’s work merits the highest recognition: this perfectly annotated book is indispensable for any student of new Russian poetry.
Tomas Venclova, Yale University
Henry Pickford does a splendid job of capturing the distinctive voice of Lev Loseff’s poetry, at once witty and profound. The translations are remarkably accurate, yet still convey the rich linguistic play of the original.
Michael Wachtel, Princeton University
Lev Loseff (15 June 1937, Leningrad, USSR - 6 May 2009, Hanover, NH USA) was professor of Russian and chair of the Russian language and literature department at Dartmouth. He published 12 collections of verse and fiction in Russian, as well as numerous works of criticism. A compilation of his poetry in English and Russian, translated by Gerald Smith, was published by Arc Publications, UK in 2012. His English works include On the Beneficence of Censorship: Aesopian Language in Modern Russian Literature, Joseph Brodsky: A Literary Life and two coedited volumes, Joseph Brodsky: The Art of a Poem and Brodsky’s Poetics and Aesthetics. levloseff.blogspot.com
Henry W. Pickford is Assistant Professor of German at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He is the editor and translator of Critical Models: Interventions and Catchwords by Theodor W. Adorno.