After Semyon Izrailevich Lipkin was named Poetry Book Society Recommended Translation (Winter 2011)

Semyon Izrailevich Lipkin (1911-2003) is now recognised as a leading literary figure in Russia, though he is still relatively unknown in the west. In his own country, he was for many years known primarily as a translator, with only close friends able to read his poems. These friends included the great poet Anna Akhmatova, who acknowledged and supported his genius. It was not until the collapse of the Soviet Union that the general reading public was allowed to become fully aware of the scope and depth of Semyon Lipkin’s own poetry.

His work is concerned with history and philosophical exploration, but above all shows a keen sense of people’s diverse destinies. His poems are rich with references to his Jewish heritage and to the Bible, and they draw on a first-hand awareness of the tragedies of World War II.

Yvonne Green has worked for eight years, making and working from literal translations to create ‘versions’ – poems ‘after Lipkin’ that bring to English some of this fascinating writer’s most characteristic verse.