If There is Something to Desire: One Hundred Poems

About this book

I broke your heart. / Now barefoot I tread / on shards. Such is the elegant simplicitya whole poem in ten words vibrating with image and emotionof the best-selling Russian poet Vera Pavlova. The one hundred poems in this book her first full-length volume in English all have the same salty immediacy as if spoken by a woman who feels that as the title poem concludes If there was nothing to regret / there was nothing to desire. Pavlovas economy and directness make her delightfully accessible to us in all of the widely ranging topics she covers here: love both sexual and the love that reaches beyond sex; motherhood; the memories of childhood that continue to feed us; our lives as passionate souls abroad in the world and the fullness of experience that entails. Expertly translated by her husband Steven Seymour Pavlovas poems are highly disciplined miniatures exhorting us without hesitation: Enough painkilling heal. / Enough cajoling command. It is a great pleasure to discover a new Russian poetone who storms our hearts with pure talent and a seemingly effortless gift for shaping poems.