With What Silence

A Russian poet whose work evokes the intensity of Mayakovsky and the restless energy of Kerouac.

Since his death in 2001, Boris Ryzhi’s reputation in Russia as the “Poet of Perestroika” has continued to grow, drawing readers of all ages to his harrowing lyrics from the 1990s. He wrote some 1,300 poems, combining the sensibilities of the street toughs he grew up around and a writer who sought beauty in the unlikeliest places. His poems are known for their clarity, musicality, emotional intensity, and formal precision, but few of them are familiar to Anglophone readers. For this debut collection in English, translator Olga Mexina selected poems that both represent his strongest work and embody his era. Ryzhi wrote often about love, goodbyes, street musicians, and wintry city scenes, even as his thoughts about death, sadness, and grief pervade the collection. As he wrote in one poem, “I was at odds with this life’s grammar.” He died by suicide at the age of 26. The book is bilingual (Russian and English) on facing pages.