Marina Tsvetaeva is acknowledged today as one of the twentieth century's greatest poets, a masterful innovator who produced a remarkable body of work before her untimely death in 1941. This bilingual collection contains six of her acclaimed narrative poems, most translated into English for the first time. Tsvetaeva always regarded the narrative poem as her true challenge, and she created powerful and intensely original works in this genre. They can be seen as markers of various stages in her poetic development, ranging from the early, folk-accented 'On a Red Steed' to the lyrical-confessional 'Poem of the Mountain' and 'Poem of the End' to the more metaphysical later poems, 'An Attempt at a Room,' a beautiful requiem for Rainer Maria Rilke, 'New Year's Greetings,' and 'Poem of the Air,' a stirring celebration of Lindbergh's transatlantic flight and the quest for the soul's freedom. "There has been no more passionate voice in twentieth-century Russian literature." -Joseph Brodsky

The life of Marina Tsvetaeva (1892-1941), now recognised as a major Russian and indeed European poet of the 20th century, was marked to an unusual extent by the political and ideological connflicts of her time. Born to a privileged background in Moscow, the revolutions of 1917 brought her crushing hardship and deprivation, but also ushered in a period of unparalleled creativity as poet and playwright. In 1922 she left for the west to rejoin her husband, who had fought with the counter-revolutionary forces. In 1925 the family moved from near Prague to Paris. Their existence was marked by appalling poverty and a growing alienation from the Russian emigre community. When in 1937 her husband was implicated in an assassination carried out by the Stalinist secret services, Tsvetaeva saw no alternative but to follow him back to the USSR. After the Nazis invaded Russia, she was evacuated to Yelabuga, where she took her own life in August 1941.