This is a collection of her own poems by the noted translator Angela Livingstone. The subjects are, in her own words: poetry, language, people, death, places, Nature and things.

Reviewed in the Poetry Book Society Winter Bulletin, 2017

Angela Livingstone studied Russian and German at Cambridge, taught literature, mainly Russian, at the University of Essex 1966 to 1997 and is now retired. She has lived in Colchester for over 50 years.

Main publications:
Pasternak (critical articles) – in collaboration with Donald Davie, Macmillan, London, 1969.
Lou Andreas-Salomé, Her Life and Writings, Gordon Fraser, London, 1984.
Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago (‘Landmarks of World Literature’),C.U.P., 1989.
Art in the Light of Conscience. (Translation of Eight Essays on Poetry by Marina Tsvetaeva.) Bloodaxe Books, 2010.
The Ratcatcher, A Lyrical Satire. (Translation of Marina Tsvetaeva’s poem of 2000 lines.) Angel Books, London, 1999.
Poems from Chevengur (Transposition into English Verse of 50 passages of Andrei Platonov’s prose), Gilliland Press Clacton, 2004.
The Marsh of Gold. Pasternak’s Writings on Inspiration and Creation. Academic Studies Press, Boston. 2008.
Phaedra. (Translation of Tsvetaeva’s Drama in Verse, and of two long poems.) Angel Books, 2012. /Awarded the Rossica Prize in 2014./

Death

She feels it ripening
within her and growing
like an unplanned being.

When this being is born
earth and sky will crackle
as when flames catch fences,

or seed-pods, dehiscent,
crack, and their heart scatters:
pale wings in a rainfall.

– from Certain Roses