Osip Mandelstam's poetry is exquisite and relevant to our age through his influence on others like Celan and Lowell. This is a small volume whose value exceeds the bounds of its covers. ( )

Some brilliant poems (#223; #344;#351;#388 to name a few), but overall I couldn't connect with the poet's voice on any deep level. Perhaps the dense classical allusions, which forced me to rack my brain for my long ago Classical Culture studies, stopped me from being drawn into this volume. ( )

In his preface, Clarence Brown, the "scholar" (as opposed to the "poet") of this translating team, has basically written my little review for me: "Merwin has translated Mandelstam into Merwin." Much as I like Merwin, and this is considerably much, Merwin is no Mandelstam. This is not a qualitative judgment, a la Kennedy/Quayle; it's just a relatively obective observation. One issue that perplexes me: since no attempt is made to replicate Mandelstam's metrics or rhyme schemes, why do Brown & Merwin consistently rearrange the sequencing of lines, when more faithful renderings would at least preserve a little of Mandelstam's poetic logic? ( )

A good selection. The best aspect of this edition is the parallel presentation with Russian on the left page and the English on the right. McDuff provides translations that are faithful to the "meaning" of the lines, but which fail to convey the rythyms and ryhmes of the originals. Without question, that's asking for an awful lot. But competent translations do only scant justice to inspired originals. ( )

Mandelstam and Anna Akhmatova are the foremost poetic witnesses to the effects of the Russian Revolution and its aftermath on the Russian intelligentsia. Mandelstam's terrible fate - imprisonment and extinguishment at Stalin's whim - should not obscure the brilliance of his poetry, which shone brighter the darker his personal circumstances. Mandelstam's work is lyrical, tender, and occasionally cutting; his landscape poetry is without equal. I'm slightly less impressed with the translations in this volume, which seem rather flat in comparison to other translations of Mandelstam I have seen; but that's a minor criticism of a fine book. ( )