Octavo. 41pp. Illustrations throughout, including borders reminiscent of Eastern European architecture, with collaged, onlaid, and occasionally hand-colored elements. Esenin, otherwise spelled Yesenin, was a Russian poet whose romanticism, bisexuality, emotional torment, and early death parallels Arthur Rimbaud. Unlike Rimbaud, however, Esenin directly addressed political crises, explicitly supporting the February Revolution and Bolshevism. in 1923 and 1924 he was regularly harassed by secret police, sometimes arrested, and only nearly avoided the executions that killed others in his circle. The poems here amount to his "Persian Cycle," composed while visiting Azerbaijan. The political overtones throughout evoke those which long motivated the Cuban left. Bound in illustrated card covers with hand-colored paper onlays and mesh. Some rubs, else near fine.