Books: Pasternak the Poet

POEMS (194 pp.)—Boris Pasternak, translated by Eugene M. Kayden—University of Michigan ($3.95).

Translation is the customs office of poetry. Nothing is more difficult to smuggle into another language and culture than a unique poetic gift. The latest poet of distinction to be hampered, though not stopped, at the literary customs barrier is Nobel Prizewinner Boris Pasternak.

In this faithfully wrought translation by Russian-born Eugene Kayden, professor emeritus of economics at the University of the South, more than a glint of Pasternak's poetic genius filters through; whole stanzas blaze with life and passion. But, since Pasternak frequently relies on a fusion of images and...