Though we know Vladimir Nabokov as a brilliant novelist, his first love was poetry. This landmark collection brings together the best of his verse, including many pieces that have never before appeared in English.

These poems span the whole of Nabokovs career, from the newly discovered Music, written in 1914, to the short, playful To Vra, composed in 1974. Many are newly translated by Dmitri Nabokov, including , a sparkling novel in verse modeled on Pushkins that constitutes a significant new addition to Nabokovs oeuvre. Included too are such poems as Lilith, an early work which broaches the taboo theme revisited nearly forty years later in , and An Evening of Russian Poetry, a masterpiece in which Nabokov movingly mourns his lost language in the guise of a versified lecture on Russian delivered to college girls. The subjects range from the Russian Revolution to the American refrigerator, taking in on the way motel rooms, butterflies, ice-skating, love, desire, exile, loneliness, language, and poetry itself; and the poet whirls swiftly between the brilliantly painted facets of his genius, wearing masks that are, by turns, tender, demonic, sincere, self-parodying, shamanic, visionary, and ingeniously domestic.