Eight Russian Poets who taught me how to write a novel about Russia

New piece on Lit Hub--talking about the eight Russian poets who shaped my sense of Russia and my character Marina, a poet, in my new book THE REVOLUTION OF MARINA M.

http://lithub.com/8-russian-poets-who...

Here's a bit of the intro:

"On a student exchange to England, I took Soviet literature—in Russian, fully exploring the level of my linguistic incompetence. It was in this class where I met the great poets of the Russian Silver Age—the time before and after the Revolution. The names still thrill me, like the names of old lovers. Akhmatova. Tsvetaeva, Mandelstam. Mayakovsky.

"The professor was an elegant Soviet émigré named Valentina. While the other professors dressed in baggy cords and bulky scarves, she wore knee high suede boots and pearls. And she read aloud. Russians don’t recite their poetry, they sing it. The poets affected me differently than the fiction writers. Their voices weren’t disguised, in the way of the novelists’, they were direct—unique, variegated flavors of Russian genius, speaking directly to the hearer. Thought condensed to lightning."

I hope you enjoy the piece and explore their remarkable work.