Thoughts for the British poet’s 200th yortsayt.

Not translations, but appropriations.

An ex-Soviet writer gets a feeling of déjà vu.

There are many strange things about Purim that in the end connect to joy.

“To Heaven.”

An American Jewish poet and his searing wartime experience.

Beauty, brevity, and uncanny vulnerability.

Shmuel the Statesman and dark side of the Golden Age.

“The Destruction of Sennacherib.”

Two new books bring Osip Mandelstam to an English-language audience.

Malines.

“How long, O Lord, shall I forgotten be?”

Poems from the Sea of Death.

“Ozymandias” is a story not only of Egypt, but of nation after nation throughout history—except one.