"A collection of extraordinary essays by one of the seminal Russian poets of the twentieth century. Gennady Aygi's longtime translator and friend Peter France has compiled this moving collection of tributes dedicated to some of the writers and artists who sustained this great Russian poet through the hardships of a dark age. Composed from the 1960s into the early 1990s, the pieces in Time of Gratitude intersperse poems with a verse-infused prose of Aygi's own imagination--a quiet, intensely expressive, essayistic style that blends autobiography with literary criticism, social commentary, nature writing, and enlightening homage. Aygi addresses such literary masters as Pasternak, Mayakovsky, Celan, and Tranströmer."--Amazon.com.;Translator's preface -- Chuvashia and Russia. A snowdrop in the storm: on Mikhail Sespel -- Henceforth (by Mikhail Sespel) -- Everyday miracle: meetings with Boris Pasternak (1956-58) -- Requiem before winter -- Leaves - into a festive wind -- Yes, Kruchonykh himself, or the least known of the most famous -- Krch - 80 -- Mayakovsky -- In honor of a master -- Kazimir Malevich -- Massacre of a silk flag: on the portraits of Vladimir Yakovlev -- An evening with Shalamov -- Degree: of stability -- The wider world. O yes: light of Kafka -- For a conversation about K. - to Olga Mashkova -- Reading Norwid -- Baudelaire -- O yes: the smile of Max Jacob -- René Char -- Field: in the full blaze of winter -- On the poetry of Tomas Tranströmer -- For a long time: into whisperings and rustlings -- The last ravine (Paul Celan).