Poem of the week

In Russia, Vera Pavlova is something of a celebrity poet; when a Russian newspaper published an astonishing 72 of her poems she was widely rumoured to be a literary hoax. This extract from a longer poem, translated by Jason Schneiderman, is published in An Anthology of Contemporary Russian Women Poets.

My parents were virgins.

At 22 - even then it was a bit much.

Yes, Papa had a reputation as a skirt chaser around the women's dormitory

but he "went" to the women in order to eat a little,

because he lived on his stipend...

He started going to Mama also in order to eat.

And when there started to be talk of a wedding at the Institute,

they slipped her a copy of

How a Girl Becomes a Woman.

Mama threw it out unopened.

It was scary for them to make me.

It was strange for them to make me.

It was painful for them to make me.

It was funny for them to make me.

And I absorbed:

To live is scary.

To live is strange.

To live is painful.

To live is very funny.

• You can borrow An Anthology of Contemporary Russian Women Poets (Carcanet Press, 2005) from the Scottish Poetry Library, which also lends by post. Tel: 0131-557 2876, e-mail [email protected] or visit www.spl.org.uk