Now available in paperback, this collection of essays, acclaimed Lithuanian poet Tomas Venclova reveals the tangled relationship between poetry and politics in Soviet Russia and Eastern Europe. His perspective on Eastern Europe in the twentieth century is that of a political dissident, a human rights campaigner, a writer, and a critic. His political writings explore and clarify what it means to belong to a nation, while his analysis of the work of major Russian and Polish writers produces a definite view of what it means to be a poet.