My turn shall also come:I sense the spreading of a wing.

~ Osip Mandelstam

Osip Mandelstam Growth Poetry

Where to start?Everything cracks and shakes,The air trembles with similes,No one world's better than another;the earth moans with metaphors.

~ Osip Mandelstam

Osip Mandelstam Metaphor Poetry Simile

I do not know how it is elsewhere, but here, in this country, poetry is a healing, life-giving thing, and people have not lost the gift of being able to drink of its inner strength. People can be killed for poetry here—a sign of unparalleled respect—because they are still capable of living by it.

~ Osip Mandelstam

Osip Mandelstam Poetry Russia

The Armenian language cannot be worn out; its boots are stone. Well, certainly, the thick-walled words, the layers of air in the semi-vowels.

~ Osip Mandelstam

Osip Mandelstam Armenia Armenian Language

The people need poetry that will be their own secretTo keep them awake forever,And bathe them in the bright-haired wave of its breathing.

~ Osip Mandelstam

Osip Mandelstam Existence Poetry

The wolfhound century leaps at my shoulders,But I am no wolf by blood.

~ Osip Mandelstam

Osip Mandelstam Danger Totalitarianism