Disbelief: 100 Russian Anti-War Poems
Edited by Julia Nemirovskaya
Smokestack Books £9.19

THE Russians have an admirable track record of anti-war poetry, based on the devastation its people suffered during the last century from the many invasions. I was therefore intrigued to hear about this new book of 100 anti-war poems from Smokestack which also has an admirable track record of internationalism in its publications list.

I was, however, seriously disappointed with this one. More than half of the poets represented live outside Russia or Ukraine, several in the US or Israel and the poems, by and large, reflect that distance.

Whereas earlier Soviet poets, just like our own WWI poets, knew first-hand what war was like and could express it viscerally in compelling and powerful imagery, in this collection the experience feels shred-bare and second hand, written at a distance; the poems are abstract and fail to get under your skin.