The Diving Bell. Parallel English-Russian Textx [The Diving Bell. Parallel English-Russian Texts]

Ignatova?s verse is highly concentrated?rich with aromas and colors and the sometimes bitter hint of what is left unsaid. Particular words or motifs gain intensity as they repeat through varied contexts. Her verse is classical, with effective but traditional versification and frequent shades of Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva, Mandelstam and of course Pushkin. Ignatova?s work is also unmistakably contemporary in its stylistic range, marked not only by current events but by the dissident angst, subversive linguistic play and conversational ease of the late Soviet period. She combines both Russian Orthodox and Biblical spiritual sensibility by setting her poems amid the famous beauties and chimeras of St. Petersburg, places where she has visited or has family ties (Crimea and Smolensk), and the new, ancient environs of Jerusalem, described as crystalline and distinct from St. Petersburg?s granite.