“No, never”

Osip Mandelstam (1891–1938) was born into a Polish-Jewish family in what was then the Russian Empire. He became one of the great poets of Russia’s Silver Age, with a keen sense of the melodies of spoken language. He published his first book, Stone, before the Russian Revolution of 1917. His poetry was celebrated from early on, even in an era rich with great poets. However, as the aims of socialism crystallized in tyranny, Russia, and Russian writers in particular, came to live under relentless terror. By the 1920s, he was shunned by the Soviet establishment for refusing to write in praise of the state. Few poets escaped premature death, whether by privation, suicide, or judicial murder. He died in a prison camp in Siberia in 1938; his poetry and prose was preserved by his wife and friends and published in New York in a collected edition in 1955. Mandelstam dove deep beneath the bleak surface of his era to reveal both the luminosity of the living past and the all-consuming brutality yet to come.

Deborah Marshall is a clarinetist. She has played with the Bavarian Radio Orchestra and performed with Peter Serkin, Emanuel Ax, Yo Yo Ma, and with many ensembles in Europe and Russia. She was also on faculty at the Munich Hochschule für Musik and now performs and teaches in the U.S. (updated 4/2013)

Douglas Penick’s collection of mixed prose, poetry, and theater pieces, The Wanderer, was published in 2015 by Mountain Treasury Press. He has written libretti for two operas, received a grant from the Witter Bynner Foundation for his poetry, and written on commission for the New York Philharmonic and for music by Philip Glass and others. He has also written three full-length renditions of episodes from the Gesar of Ling cycle, and a novel about the third Ming emperor, A Journey of the North Star (Publerati, 2011). He is married to Deborah Marshall. (updated 4/2015)