The Living about the Living

Marina Tsvetaeva's prose about poets is special; it reveals the soul of a person, showing them as alive and genuine. In it, a ruthless and observant mind combines with romantic and passionate enthusiasm. Tsvetaeva was a master of words, her words were born as immediate vivid impressions, expressive strokes of a brush. The drawings of poets — M. Voloshin, O. Mandelstam, V. Bryusov, Andrei Bely and others — remarkably complement and enhance their verbal images, so accurately captured and conveyed by the author on paper.