Tolstoy in Love

Tolstoy in Love is the first full-length collection of poems by Tyrone-born Ray Givans. Daring and risk-taking, the first section begins in the voice of Anna Akhmatova, with what John Wakeman (founder and co-editor of THE SHOp), calls a triumphant, lyrical celebration of her son's release after years in Stalin's prisons. Notions of voice, and influence, are further explored in poems that are both inner portraits of and meditations on a gallery of writers, including Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Solzhenitsyn, Emily Dickinson, John Berryman and Simone Weil. The second section... is largely autobiographical-reminiscences of a Protestant boyhood in Northern Ireland, evocations of a divided Belfast. The poems here are humane, sometimes touching, sometimes ironic, sometimes playful. Here are two books for the price of one, both worth having.

• | Author: Ray Givans
• | Publisher: Dedalus Press
• | Publication Date: May 01, 2009
• | Number of Pages: 84 pages
• | Binding: Paperback or Softback
• | ISBN-10: 1906614083
• | ISBN-13: 9781906614089