Marina Tsvetaeva (1892–1941) was a poet whose work is considered among the greatest in twentieth-century Russian literature. A child prodigy, in her earliest writings she explored the female poet’s challenges in society and the right to self-expression. She lived through the 1917 Revolution, which she rejected, glorifying the fight against communism in the epic verse cycle The Encampment of the Swans. During the Moscow Famine, she placed both her daughters in a state-run institution, where one died of starvation. Her husband was executed on espionage charges. Tsvetaeva committed suicide in 1941.

May 3, 1915

by Marina Tsvetaeva, translated by Carol Moldaw with Irina Ross

I like that it’s not me you pine for,
And like that I don’t pine for you,
That we stand on solid ground
And will never get swept away.

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