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Elena Schwarz Russia    PWF 2008

Elena Schwarz was born in 1948 in St. Petersburg. Because her poems possessed a religious character and a style that shocked the censors, she published her work in samizdat—enjoying an ever-increasing, though secret popularity—until perestroika permitted Storony svieta {Four Quarters of the Glob} to be published in 1989. Her first collection of poetry Tanzuyushzy David {Dancing David} was published in New York 1985, followed by Stichi {Poems}, published in Paris in 1987.

For Bella Akhmadulia, “Elena Schwarz is a miracle. Her poetry is the purest of creations.”  A vision—“a dance without legs.”

Now recognized as one of Russia’s finest contemporary poets, Elena Schwarz’s most recent collections of poems—Birdsong on the Seabed, Solo on a White-Hot Trumpet, West-East Wind, A Wild Script of Recent Times, and The Scribe’s Staff—are readily available in St. Petersburg where she lives.