The Voronezh Workbooks by Osip Mandelstam trans. By Alistair Noon Nancy Gaffield If life is full of

If life is full of uncertainties

that yours is the Earth and everything that's in it

turning each poem into a many-angled

and into its afterlife

The Voronezh Workbooks by Osip Mandelstam trans. By Alistair Noon Nancy Gaffield If life is full ofOsip Mandelstam spent three years in internal exile in the city of Voronezh, in south western Russia, after someone in his circle of acquaintances had informed the Soviet authorities of his "Stalin Epigram" in 1934. The ninety odd poems he wrote there are the pinnacle of his poetic achievement, bearing witness to Mandelstam's consistent independence of mind and concern for the freedom of thought. More covertly and controversially, however, they also