Another Babylon

Winner of the 2010 Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize, Another Babylon evokes a world of gods, myths and folk-tales, maybe borrowed, maybe idiosyncratic. It is a richly imaginative and deeply original world, drawing on Vladislav's Russian heritage, but also exhibiting a transnational intelligence, and the imaginative world of a poet who has lived in vastly different places. There is a beguiling story-telling quality to the work, which has strong narrative lines and lyricism beautifully balanced to evoke the imagined world. Vladislav expresses a deep sense of care and craft in Another Babylon; a quality of exquisite care which belies the vital, vibrant realms it expresses.