- Paperback
- 100 pages
- ISBN 978-1-906613-38-9
Publisher Smith/Doorstop (The Poetry Business)
Poetry Book Society Recommended Translation (Winter 2011).
Semyon Izrailevich Lipkin (1911-2003) is now recognised as a leading literary figure in Russia, though he is still relatively unknown in the west. In his own country, he was for many years known primarily as a translator, with only close friends able to read his poems. These friends included the great poet Anna Akhmatova, who acknowledged and supported his genius. It was not until the collapse of the Soviet Union that the general reading public was allowed to become fully aware of the scope and depth of Semyon Lipkin’s own poetry.
His work is concerned with history and philosophical exploration, but above all shows a keen sense of people’s diverse destinies. His poems are rich with references to his Jewish heritage and to the Bible, and they draw on a first-hand awareness of the tragedies of World War II.
Yvonne Green has worked for eight years, making and working from literal translations to create ‘versions’ – poems ‘after Lipkin’ that bring to English some of this fascinating writer’s most characteristic verse.
"Semyon Lipkin’s poetry is defiantly clever and reserved. There is no artificiality of an anguish – only constant restraint of a wound."
Joseph Brodsky
"Were it for no other reason than the part Lipkin played in preserving and publishing Vasily Grossman's 'Life and Fate' he should be remembered."
Martin Amis
Yvonne Green was born in London in 1957. Her poems have been published in many magazines and journals and on BBC Radio 4’s The Food Programme. She was poet in residence to JWA Women’s Refuge, to Norwood Ravenswood and at Spiro’s Ark. Her first collection, Boukhara, was a winner in the Poetry Business Competition; and After Semyon Izrailevich Lipkin: 1911-2003 was named PBS Translation Choice for Winter 2011.
Semyon Izrailevich Lipkin (1911-2003) is now recognised as a leading literary figure in Russia, though he is still relatively unknown in the west. In his own country, he was for many years known primarily as a translator, with only close friends able to read his poems. These friends included the great poet Anna Akhmatova, who acknowledged and supported his genius. It was not until the collapse of the Soviet Union that the general reading public was allowed to become fully aware of the scope and depth of Semyon Lipkin’s own poetry.
His work is concerned with history and philosophical exploration, but above all shows a keen sense of people’s diverse destinies. His poems are rich with references to his Jewish heritage and to the Bible, and they draw on a first-hand awareness of the tragedies of World War II.
Yvonne Green has worked for eight years, making and working from literal translations to create ‘versions’ – poems ‘after Lipkin’ that bring to English some of this fascinating writer’s most characteristic verse.
"Semyon Lipkin’s poetry is defiantly clever and reserved. There is no artificiality of an anguish – only constant restraint of a wound."
Joseph Brodsky
"Were it for no other reason than the part Lipkin played in preserving and publishing Vasily Grossman's 'Life and Fate' he should be remembered."
Martin Amis
Yvonne Green was born in London in 1957. Her poems have been published in many magazines and journals and on BBC Radio 4’s The Food Programme. She was poet in residence to JWA Women’s Refuge, to Norwood Ravenswood and at Spiro’s Ark. Her first collection, Boukhara, was a winner in the Poetry Business Competition; and After Semyon Izrailevich Lipkin: 1911-2003 was named PBS Translation Choice for Winter 2011.
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