SOURCE: Kelly, Catriona. “Elena Shvarts (1948-).” In A History of Russian Women's Writing, 1820-1992, pp. 411-22. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 1994.

In the following essay, Kelly discusses the defining characteristics of Shvarts's poetry, viewing her verse as a successful combination of physical and metaphysical concerns.

Though Elena Shvarts had not published a collection in Russia until 1990, poetry readings and Western publications had established her reputation long before that as one of the most boldly imaginative and accomplished young Russian poets. Born in Leningrad, she had an education there which, by comparison with the well-marked paths usually trodden by Soviet citizens, could only be called bizarre. She was never at a writers' school; she dropped out of university, finding it ‘just as boring as school’, and then attended a drama school with no greater enthusiasm, though she did complete the course this time. This series of false starts...