Selected Poems of Vladimir Nabokov

Though we know Vladimir Nabokov as a brilliant novelist, his first love was poetry. This landmark collection brings together the best of his verse, including many pieces that have never before appeared in English. These poems span the whole of Nabokov’s career, from the newly discovered “Music,” written in 1914, to the short, playful “To Véra,” composed in 1974. Many are newly translated by Dmitri Nabokov, including The University Poem, a sparkling novel in verse modeled on Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin that constitutes a significant new addition to Nabokov’s oeuvre. Included too are such poems as “Lilith”, an early work which broaches the taboo theme revisited nearly forty years later in Lolita, and “An Evening of Russian Poetry”, a masterpiece in which Nabokov movingly mourns his lost language in the guise of a versified lecture on Russian delivered to college girls. The subjects range from the Russian Revolution to the American refrigerator, taking in on the way motel rooms, butterflies, ice-skating, love, desire, exile, loneliness, language, and poetry itself; and the poet whirls swiftly between the brilliantly painted facets of his genius, wearing masks that are, by turns, tender, demonic, sincere, self-parodying, shamanic, visionary, and ingeniously domestic.

Table of Contents:
Introduction Poems Translated by Dmitri Nabokov MUSIC REVOLUTION PETER IN HOLLAND THE LAST SUPPER EASTER THE RULER THE GLASSES OF ST. JOSEPH “LIKE PALLID DAWN, MY POETRY SOUNDS GENTLY” SHAKESPEARE CUBES ST. PETERSBURG EVENING FORTUNE-TELLING THE DEMON THE SKATER SPRING DREAM THE TRAIN WRECK UT PICTURA POESIS A TRIFLE THE UNIVERSITY POEM BUTTERFLIES TOLSTOY “I HAVE NO NEED, FOR MY NOCTURNAL TRAVELS” TO THE GRAPEFRUIT THE HAWKMOTH “FORTY-THREE YEARS, FORTY-FOUR YEARS MAYBE” TO VÉRA The Russian Poems from Poems and Problems THE RAIN HAS FLOWN TO LIBERTY I STILL KEEP MUTE HOTEL ROOM PROVENCE LA BONNE LORRAINE THE BLAZON THE MOTHER I LIKE THAT MOUNTAIN THE DREAM THE SNAPSHOT IN PARADISE THE EXECUTION FOR HAPPINESS THE LOVER CANNOT SLEEP LILITH THE MUSE SOFT SOUND SNOW THE FORMULA AN UNFINISHED DRAFT EVENING ON A VACANT LOT THE MADMAN HOW I LOVE YOU L’INCONNUE DE LA SEINE AT SUNSET WE SO FIRMLY BELIEVED WHAT HAPPENED OVERNIGHT THE POETS TO RUSSIA OCULUS FAME THE PARIS POEM NO MATTER HOW ON RULERS TO PRINCE S. M. KACHURIN A DAY LIKE ANY OTHER IRREGULAR IAMBICS WHAT IS THE EVIL DEED FROM THE GRAY NORTH The English Poems from Poems and Problems A LITERARY DINNER THE REFRIGERATOR AWAKES A DISCOVERY THE POEM AN EVENING OF RUSSIAN POETRY THE ROOM VOLUPTATES TACTIONUM RESTORATION THE POPLAR LINES WRITTEN IN OREGON ODE TO A MODEL ON TRANSLATING “EUGENE ONEGIN” RAIN THE BALLAD OF LONGWOOD GLEN English Poems Not Included in Poems and Problems HOME REMEMBRANCE THE RUSSIAN SONG SOFTEST OF TONGUES EXILE A POEM DREAM DANDELIONS LUNAR LINES

About the Author :
VLADIMIR NABOKOV studied French and Russian literature at Trinity College, Cambridge, then lived in Berlin and Paris, writing prolifically in Russian under the pseudonym Sirin. In 1940, he left France for the United States, where he wrote some of his greatest works—Bend Sinister (1947), Lolita (1955), Pnin (1957), and Pale Fire (1962)—and translated his earlier Russian novels into English. He taught at Wellesley, Harvard, and Cornell. He died in Montreux, Switzerland, in 1977.   Thomas Karshan is the author of Vladimir Nabokov and the Art of Play and co- translator of Nabokov’s The Tragedy of Mister Morn. Previously a research fellow at Christ Church, Oxford, and Queen Mary, University of London, he is now a lecturer in literature at the University of East Anglia. He lives in London and Norwich.