Poetry. Translated from the Russian by John High, Michael Molnar and Michael Palmer, with Nina Gerkin, Julie Gesin, Katya Olmsted, Eugene Ostashevsky and Darlene Reddaway. Introduction by Marjorie Perloff. Alexei Parshchikov is undoubtedly the most exciting young Russian poet today. Through this first English-language collection of his work, American readers get a glimpse of an imagination that soars freely and boldly through all times and places. Indeed, this book is the trace of a poetic road that, in Parshchikov's words, 'is the place for finding your way' while 'time's wind unwinds you and sets you against the flow'--Andrew Wachtel, Professor of Slavic Studies, Northwestern University. In an 1898 letter from St. Petersburg, Rainer Maria Rilke wrote that it was Russian things that would give him the names for his most tender 'devoutnesses.' Now, almost 100 years later, it would seem that it is not Russian things but Russian names--the fullness of these poems, here beautifully translated for us--that embody those devoutnesses that prolong close observation and sustain contemplative complexity. Alexei Parshchikov's detailed lingering in the world he perceives has given us the fullness of these poems. Their publication in this, his first American book, is an important occasion--Lyn Hejinian.