Many of Kristiina Ehin's poems in On the Edge of a Sword appear to be effortless reveries, for instance this opening passage from the first poem:

The poem continues in a similar vein, but springing beautifully disconcerting ideas and images as it unwinds itself over a page and a half, for instance:

And:

And:

I don't claim to know exactly what is going on, but these are not poems intent on exacting a particular response or on proselytising or of making too great a show of themselves. That's fine.

Many poems are triggered or feature some experience from Ehin's life and this creates a lovely familiarity. But even in this familiarity the wide world casts its shadow. In the poem 'Why is so little Irish spoken in Ireland' (also the opening line) a chance encounter serves to illuminate the fragility of Estonian as a language, how easy it might be outflanked by our English grunts and squeaks. The matter of Estonia and Estonian is a theme, of course. This is a country and a language that has had to struggle for independence and what it has now is by no means certain. One poem mid-way through the collection opens with Even I have seen Putin in a dream and in its second stanza offers this chilling image:

Estonian has been dragged off in such a way on a number of occasions. It wasn't fun. But the abiding spirit of this collection are poems of sheer beauty often knowingly erotic and with a deliciously sharp tongue, as in the closing passage of the poem 'Visby':

And in other poems there is a simply marvellous ability to compound one person's experience of nature with all the issues of the world. This example is worth quoting in full:

And can I finish by saying how good the translations are. I know no Estonian, but when I see the word 'podgy' used so perfectly (in the poem 'In North Beach San Francisco') I assume that the translator, llmar Lehtpere, knows what he is doing. This adds to the real pleasure to be had from reading and re-reading — including reading aloud to a beloved — to be got from this collection.