This week I’ve been reading Sanford Friedman’s Conversations with Beethoven, and so it seems only appropriate to feature a poem about music this week.

“Music” is a poem by the Estonian poet Juhan Liiv, who I’ve just learned about thanks to The Poetry Foundation; an English translation of his poems was published in 2007. Though he was relatively unknown in life, he is now considered one of Estonia’s greatest poets.

I highly recommend reading the translator’s note on the poem, which gives some background about Liiv and the Estonian poetic tradition. Fascinating stuff.