Poems About Me

Pyotr Vail is a brilliant essayist, traveler, and gourmand—author of “The Genius of Place” and “Maps of the Motherland,” and co-author of “Russian Cuisine in Exile,” “Native Speech,” and other books well known to our reader. He has taken up an unusual genre, the essence of which isn’t easy to define. He arranged the events of his life according to Russian poems of the 20th century—those that once (and still) influenced him: “become participants in dramatic or comic life episodes, astonish, delight, and teach.” In other words, as the author puts it, the poems address him directly. Hence the principle of compiling this astonishing anthology, stated in the title: “Poems about me.”