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Snow Drifts, I Sing: Selected Poems
Guernica Editions, Fall 2013
108 pages
Trade Paperback
ISBN13: 9781550718256
ISBN10: 1550718258
English
Translated from the Estonian
$20.00 Canada, $17.95 US, £11.95 UK
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Juhan Liiv (1864-1913) has the same significance for Estonian culture that Federico García Lorca and T.S. Eliot have for modern culture created, respectively, in Spanish and English. Liiv's existential-patriotic and intimate-holistic lyrics have had an impact across Estonian society. Rebellion against all models and fashions existing in poetry unites Liiv with Walt Whitman: noble and proud, always in search of original expression, ever aspiring to resemble God in the inimitability of creation.
It would be madness / to silence one's mother tongue. / Even the hen explicates things / to her brood.
Jüri Talvet and H. L. Hix have brought twenty-first-century readers a remarkable gift with their selection and bilingual presentation of Estonian poet Juhan Liiv’s work. As well known in Estonia as Walt Whitman is known in the United States, Liiv (1864–1913) deserves to be widely read and to take his rightful place among the world’s great poets.
World Literature Today
Books by Juhan Liiv
Books by Jüri Talvet
Books by H.L. Hix