Other Shepherds

Original poetry by Nina Kossman, accompanied by a selection of poems by Marina Tsvetaeva, translated from the Russian by Kossman.

"The sea is a postcard," writes Nina Kossman. There is both something elemental in this vision and -- iron-tough. Kossman's poetics are very much in conversation with Tsvetaeva's dictum "To live as I write: tersely." ...We need, Kossman tells us, to "learn to see / without eyes," perhaps because we must "get used to death / before it's here." This is a beautiful, honest book.

- Ilya Kaminsky

Intensely eloquent translations which capture the doom-eager splendor of a superbly gifted poet.

- Harold Bloom