Pasternak's unencumbered and startling perceptions of the world are dense, rich, and surreal. Osip Mandelstam wrote, "To read the poems of Pasternak is to get one's throat clear, to fortify one's breathing... I see Pasternak's My Sister -- Life as a collection of magnificent exercises in breathing ... a cure for tuberculosis." This English translation, rendered with verve and intelligence by Mark Rudman, is a heady gust that matches the intensity and power of the original Russian text.
| Preface | ix | |
| In Memory of the Demon | 5 | |
| Isn't it Time for the Birds to Sing? | ||
| About These Poems | 9 | |
| Longing | 11 | |
| My sister--life today floods over | 12 | |
| The Weeping Orchard | 13 | |
| The Mirror | 14 | |
| The Girl | 16 | |
| You hold that branch in the wind | 17 | |
| Rain | 18 | |
| The Book of the Steppe | ||
| Before All This There Was the Winter | 21 | |
| From Superstition | 23 | |
| Don't Touch | 24 | |
| You played that role so well | 25 | |
| Balashov | 26 | |
| The Imitators | 27 | |
| The Image | 28 | |
| Entertainment for the Beloved | ||
| It shakes a fragrant branch | 32 | |
| With Oars Crossed | 33 | |
| Spring Rainstorm | 34 | |
| Policeman's Whistles | 35 | |
| The Stars in Summer | 36 | |
| English Lessons | 37 | |
| Lectures in Philosophy | ||
| The Definition of Poetry | 41 | |
| The Definition of Soul | 42 | |
| Diseases of Earth | 43 | |
| The Definition of Art | 44 | |
| The Thunderstorm | 45 | |
| The Substitute | ||
| I live with your photograph | 49 | |
| Songs in Letters that She Would Not be Lonely | ||
| Sparrow Hills | 53 | |
| Mein Liebchen, Was Willst Du Noch Mehr? | 54 | |
| Raspad | 56 | |
| Romanovka | ||
| The Steppe | 61 | |
| A Sultry Night | 63 | |
| An Even More Sultry Dawn | 64 | |
| The Attempt to Separate the Soul | ||
| Moochkap | 68 | |
| The Flies of the Moochkap Teahouse | 69 | |
| What a wild party | 71 | |
| We have tried to separate our souls | 73 | |
| The Return | ||
| How life lulls us | 77 | |
| At Home | 82 | |
| To Helen | ||
| To Helen | 84 | |
| As with Them | 86 | |
| Summer | 87 | |
| Storm, an Endless Instant | 89 | |
| Postscript | ||
| They will extract a price, my love | 93 | |
| Let the words drop like amber | 95 | |
| There Were | 97 | |
| To love--to go--in endless thunder | 99 | |
| Postscript | 101 | |
| The End | ||
| Is it all real? | 105 | |
| The Highest Sickness | 107 |
Overview
Pasternak's unencumbered and startling perceptions of the world are dense, rich, and ...