Mikhail Eremin (b. 1936, in the Caucasus) participated in one of the first unofficial post-war poetry groups, the so-called “philological school” of the late 1950s. His books, Poems (1–6), were published by Pushkinskii Fond. Joseph Brodsky wrote this of him: “Eremin is an unreconstructed minimalist. Poetry in essence consists precisely in the concentration of language: a small quantity of lines surrounded by a mass of empty space. Eremin elevates this concentration to a principle: as though it is not simply language but poetry itself that crystallizes into verse . . . Most remarkable is that all of it has been written for oneself, out of one’s own conception of the mother tongue. Eremin’s poetry may rightfully be called Futurist in the sense that, to this type of poetry, the future belongs.” His Selected Poems is available in the English translation of J. Kates. A selection of five poems in Alex Cigale’s translation appeared recently in Asymptote.
