Roland's Horn: Poems 1917-1925

When Milestones 2 appeared in 1921, it broke a silence that had lasted eight years, in which no books by Tsvetaeva appeared, and brought Boris Pasternak the revelation of her genius. He wrote to her that he had had to break off reading aloud three different poems because interrupted by his own sobbing. The tone of its two sections is carefully crafted, profane then sacred, carnal then spiritual. Her uncollected poems from 1920 to 1925 cover the two years before she left Russia and her sojourn in Czechoslovakia, close to Prague. They reflect the preoccupations of The Craft (1923) and After Russia (1925) but also contain unexpected jewels, brief but unforgettable inspirations and annotations. Almost all of these items appear in English for the first time. The book concludes with the poems to Alexander Blok added to her original sequence after the older poet's death in August 1921.