Russian poet Mikhail Kuzmin’s (1872–1936) first poetry collection “Tīkli” / “Сети” (Nets) (1908) made him one of the central figures of the modern literary environment of his time, providing him with a permanent place in the pantheon of Russian literature of the Silver Age.
Most of its almost 100 poems has been translated by Einārs Pelšs, but also includes several translations by Kārlis Vērdiņš. The book is supplemented by a foreword of the poet and literary historian Dmitry Kuzmin.
Mikhail Kuzmin was one of the most mysterious poets of the Silver Age and Russian master of the ver libra. Russian poetry at the beginning of the century practiced a wide range of different types of escapism, and turning to distant lands and ages was so common, however Kuzmin gave it completely individual features. Ancient times and the French Gallant century he depicts as cosy and private – with all the distance of time and geography the poet's attention focuses not on King Esarhaddon as it was for Bryusov, or Conquistador as for Gumilyov, but on an ordinary man with his simple joys, and first of all – a man in love.