Ever since her death in 1966 Anna Akhmatova has been recognized as the greatest modern Russian poet. A rich and representative selection of Akhmatova's work-from her poignant, deeply personal love poems to her haunting laments for the martyrs of the Stalinist purges-has been newly translated by the American poet Lyn Coffin. In her finely crafted translations Coffin has been uniquely successful in reproducing the directness and striking effects characteristic...

"Osip Mandelstam has become an almost mythical figure of modern Russian poetry, his work treasured all over the world for its lyrical beauty and innovative, revolutionary engagement with the dark times he lived through during the Stalinist era. It was while exiled in the city of Voronezh, the black earth region of Russia, that his poetry, as Joseph Brodsky wrote, transformed into "a poetry of high velocity and exposed nerves...becoming more a song...