The poetry of Georgia, a country of ancient culture in the South Caucasus, is the crown jewel of its exceptionally rich literary heritage. Secular poetry, having emerged from the fusion of folk poems and religious hymns and homilies of the early Christian era over a thousand years ago, remained a dominant genre of Georgian literature well into the twentieth century. Even today poetry is held in the highest esteem as a particularly noble form of art, not just a domain of academic studies, but a part of daily life.... Poetry is indeed the key to understanding Georgian culture.

The present anthology offers the English-speaking reader a first-rate collection of Georgian poems in translation, a valuable glimpse into the treasures of Georgian poetry.... (Lyn Coffin) has shaped the material into poems in English, while maintaining the distinctive voice and flavors of the originals, and staying as true to their forms as possible. Although the selection of poems is limited to the works of a handful of the most outstanding names, every single one of these poems is a masterpiece.