Mathura

As of 2014, I am a relative latecomer to the poetry of Mathura (Krishnaite pseudonym of the Estonian writer Margus Lattik) who has published over a dozen own-poetry collections and several translations since 2001. The theme of the love of nature is strong in his work and makes it especially appealing to me, so I'm quickly trying to catch up on his books, some of which are now out-of-print.

Sõstrahelmed (Currant Beads) is a superb introduction to his work as it actually reincarnates (yes, I use the Hinduism reference intentionally) a selection of the poems from his 2003 collection Sõstramesi (Currant Blossom Honey) in an enhanced format where they are accompanied by photographs of the beautiful poetry-embedded glass beads of artisan Kairi Orgusaar who was inspired to do the beads by the original book. Orgusaar embeds fragments of the poems inside beads of glass where they are mostly quite legible. You can view samples of the bead work at http://www.hot.ee/mathura/systramesi/... and also at her homepage http://kairiorg.blogspot.ca/.

This new collection is also recommended as it is a bilingual edition with the original Estonian poems printed face-to-face with the superb English language translations of Ilmar Lehtpere and Sadie Murphy. This is an added attraction for a non-native Estonian speaker as I am.

Not everything can be perfect in this world however, and I was slightly irrationally disturbed by a typo of the word "invincible" on page 45 where it was spelt "invicible". It felt like a smudge on this otherwise superbly designed and printed collection. BUT, maybe it is symbolically appropriate that the poems do not achieve Samsara (Release) this time and must be reincarnated again and again until they reach that state of perfection. Maybe the typo was intentional?

Really this is a 4.9 out of 5, but Library Thing doesn't allow rating in that way. Highly recommended, especially if you are interested in nature poetry and new Estonian poetry.… (altro)