Russian 20th-Century Poetry

Russian 20th-century poetry is one of the pinnacles of European literature and we still know little about it. This evening included brief readings from Yesenin and Mayakovsky but was largely devoted to three less widely-known poets: Maria Petrovykh, Varlam Shalamov (still better known for his prose) and the emigre poet Georgy Ivanov, one of the very greatest of all Russian lyric poets.

Stephen Capus, Robert Chandler, Boris Dralyuk and James Womack read some of their translations included in the new Penguin Book of Russian Poetry.