Translated from the Russian, this collection of six Christmas poems by the United States Nobel Laureate is about time, eternity, and love, spanning a lifetime of metaphysical reflection and formal invention. Christmas poems by the Nobel Laureate To Him, all things seemed enormous: His mother's breast, the steam out of the ox's nostrils, Caspar, Balthazar, Melchior, the team of Magi, the presents heaped by the door, ajar. He was but a dot, and a dot was the star. Joseph Brodsky, who jokingly referred to himself "a Christian by correspondence," endeavored from the time he "first took to writing poems seriously," to write a poem for every Christmas. He said in an interview: "What is remarkable about Christmas? The fact that what we're dealing with here is the calculation of life--or, at the very least, existence--in the consciousness of an individual, a specific individual." He continued "I liked that concentration of everything in one place--which is what you have in that cave scene." There resulted a remarkable sequence of poems about time, eternity, and love, spanning a lifetime of metaphysical reflection and formal invention. In Nativity Poems six superb poets in English have come together to translate the ten as yet untranslated poems from this sequence, and the poems are presented in English in their entirety for the first time, in a beautiful, pocket-sized edition drawing on the Renaissance imagery that Brodsky identified as the poems' inspiration.

Contains "A conversation with Joseph Brodsky" by Peter Vail.

Christmas ballad translated by Glyn Maxwell -- January 1, 1965 translated by the author -- Speech over spilled milk translated by Glyn Maxwell -- Anno Domini translated by Daniel Weissbort -- Second Christmas by the shore translated by George L Kline -- December 24, 1971 translated by Alan Myers with the author -- Lagoon translated by Anthony Hecht -- With riverbanks of frozen chocolate, a city translated by Derek Walcott -- Snow is falling, leaving the whole world outmanned translated by Paul Muldoon -- Star of the nativity translated by the author -- Flight into Egypt translated by Melissa Green -- Imagine striking a match that night in the cave translated by Seamus Heaney -- Nativity translated by the author -- Presepio translated by Richard Wilbur -- Lullaby translated by the author -- 25-xii-1993 translated by Richard Wilbur -- Air-fierce frost and pine-boughs translated by Derek Walcott -- Flight into Egypt (2) translated by Seamus Heaney -- Conversation with Joseph Brodsky / Peter Vail -- Editor's note.