Poetry
ლექსები
Ana Kalandadze · 1953
Synopsis
Short poems in which a herb, a saint, a hill or a place name is enough to hold the text. The language reaches back toward Old Georgian, and the country is seen through its plants and stones rather than through the subjects the period imposed. They feature the mulberry, the fine rain, the return of peace after the war, and figures taken from the calendar of Georgian saints.
Context
The volume does not give the work as it had been written: many pieces were dropped from it, and those that passed were altered. It opens with a poem of praise dated to the very year of publication, followed by texts from the three preceding years whose presence paid for the right to print the rest; the poet would say later that this book, and not only this one, is merely a series of compromises. Her verses have been translated into Russian, English, French and Polish, and many have been set to music.
Who it is for
A slim volume of verse, with no French edition. It helps to know that the first piece in the book is a commission, and that reading it on the same footing as the rest distorts the reading.
Prizes and reception
The book that made the poet's name: its publication brought her an immediate popularity that her later collections have not belied.