The Music of Parting

In his new poems, as well as in his poetry of recent years, Nikolai Zaikin conveys a sharp sense of fleeting life, which is usually not easy, especially when accompanied by the paradoxical, ambivalent feeling that «Life has slipped away — and at the same time / Life has not yet begun» (V. Kazantsev). The return to the unforgettable, dear past is the main theme of this book. According to P. Kryuchkov, «Nikolai Zaikin is a poet of unending sorrow and unquenchable gratitude». For the miracle of existence granted by the Creator.