Life, Life: Selected Poems (European Writers)

bought this simply because I love tarkovskys work-so I try and buy every book on or about the director, that said this is a book of his fathers poems. Well worth the purchase price if youre a collector like me, if you enjoy poetry you may find that some of the meaning to the poems might be lost in translation.

First met Tarkovsky poetry in his son's film MIRROR and then found translations in a book about Tarkovsky's films by a different translator. Bought this one in the hope of reading more and being similarly affected. Unfortunately the translation is less sensitive but better than nothing if you don't read Russian.

Unfortunately I don't like the translations. It doesn't sound like the words are flowing and that is how it sounds in russian.

It's frustrating and annoying that this translation will have the copyright on Tarkovsky's poetry for years to come. The translator may speak Russian but she has no ear for English. The translations in his son's films, which is how most English speakers come to these poems, are far superior to these. A real waste of the opportunity to introduce this poet to an Anglophone audience. As an example, compare the poem on page 13 with my own translation:Sight grows dim – my strength becomesTwo invisible diamond shafts;Hearing fails, as my father’s houseBreathes the sound of distant thunder;Tissues of hard muscle weakenLike hoary oxen at the plough;And no longer, from my shoulders,Do two wings glitter in the night.At the feast, a candle, I waste away.At dawn gather up my melted wax,And read in its page the secretOf whom to mourn, of what to be proud,Of how, by laying down the last portionOf joy, to make an easy death,And, sheltering under a makeshift roof,To light up posthumously, like a word.