If There is Something to Desire: One Hundred Poems - Softcover

Pavlova, Vera

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0375711899 ISBN 13: 9780375711893

Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2012

Synopsis

Now in paperback, the widely acclaimed collection of one hundred poems of extraordinarily elegant simplicity by one of the best-selling poets in Russia, whose presence on the American poetry scene is increasingly strong.
 
Pavlova writes about love (both sexual love and the love that reaches beyond sex); about motherhood; about the memories of childhood that continue to feed us; about our lives as passionate souls abroad in the world. Sensitively translated by her husband, Steven Seymour, Pavlova's poems are highly disciplined miniatures ("I broke your heart. / Now barefoot I tread / on shards"--a whole poem in ten words). Pavlova is a poet who storms our hearts with pure talent and a seemingly effortless gift for shaping poems.

About this title

About the Author

VERA PAVLOVA is the author of fifteen collections of poetry, and the librettos to five operas and four cantatas. Her poems have been translated into twenty-one languages, and she has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Apollon Grigoriev Grand Prize (2001). Her poetry has appeared in several U.S. publications, including The New Yorker and Tin House. If There Is Something to Desire is Pavlova's first collection in English.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

7

If there is something to desire,
there will be something to regret.
If there is something to regret,
there will be something to recall.
If there is something to recall,
there was nothing to regret.
If there was nothing to regret,
there was nothing to desire.



9

I broke your heart.
Now barefoot I tread
on shards.

11

Let us touch each other
while we still have hands,
palms, forearms, elbows . . .
Let us love each other for misery,
let us torture each other,
mangle, maim,
to remember better,
to part with less pain.

16

Whose face and body would I like to have?
The face and body of Nike.
I would fly past all those Venuses,
would have nothing to do with Apollos.
With the wind chilling my shoulder
I would leave behind forever
the hall of plaster copies!

71

Self-Portrait in Profile

I
am
the one
who wakes up
on your
left.

76

Am I lovely? Of course!
Breathlessly I taste
the subtle compliment
of a handmade caress.
Chop me into tiny bits,
caress and tame my soul,
that godly swallow
you love to no end.

78

Basked in the sun,
listened to birds,
licked off raindrops,
and only in flight
the leaf saw the tree
and grasped
what it had been.

91

dropped
and falling
from such
heights
for so
long
that
maybe
I will have
enough time
to learn
flying

Edition details

• Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0375711899
• ISBN 13: 9780375711893
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 129