Olga Stein’s poetry is marked by its intellectual depth, emotional candor, and sharp cultural insight. Her work often reflects on identity, memory, and the complexities of human relationships, blending personal experience with broader philosophical concerns. Stein has a distinctive voice that merges lyrical sensitivity with analytical precision, allowing her to probe the subtle tensions of modern life. Themes of longing, displacement, and resilience emerge through her verses, revealing both vulnerability and strength. With a refined use of language and imagery, she creates poetry that resonates deeply, inviting readers to reflect on the self and society alike.Today we will read her four poems.
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| Olga Stein |
Love and Death in the Multiverse
Quantum physics posits multiple worlds
lines them up, per theory,
so they unfold in parallel
without touching. Everettian enthusiast
holds court, enraptured, smiles,
blethers on volubly apropos the premise:
multiverse, its scores of worlds,
with variations on us in each.
Intriguing, sure. I nod, doubtful.
Still, I’m willing to muse—not on the math,
but over what’s real or unreal.
Yesterday, or possibly last week,
I saw a photo of the NGC 6302.
Its dying star formed two wings,
accretions of a giant nebula,
composed of multicoloured clusters.
Beauteous in its pelerine of stellar gas and dust,
this celestial marvel looked to me
like two universes converging in a kiss.
Le bisou, I think, glancing sideways,
try to picture us in alternate universes:
Short-lived flickers in infinite time;
perhaps, parts in a story staged over and over.
If we die here, do we die elsewhere?
It might be fair to say our endings are synched.
Then again, it could work like chain reactions,
inducing slow implosions. Terminal illness?
That would make cancer the antimatter.
I wonder, What happens when we love in one world?
Do the powers of attraction hold
between two particles in every universe?
Or are we drawn together by chance
here only, not multiversally?
Then wouldn’t we be stray elements
whose valencies are varied,
and whose fusion would depend fully
on the vagaries of fate?
Confessional
“I don’t write confessionally,” I say, drawing closer.
My animal self wallows in the warmth, the feel of skin-to-skin.
I breathe his scent, the sweet musk, picture myself a critter sniffing contentedly
the freshly-dug soil, roots of verdure, and tiny insect lives blissfully tucked deep inside, unseen.
The large muscles of his back relax. I’m well received.
His quiet pulse blends with my own organic rhythms.
We’re like wolves nestled in their den. I’m half-asleep.
“But isn’t it par for the course nowadays?”
His question disrupts the cradling stillness,
nudges me back into awareness.
I say, “Professionally speaking, it’s not prudent to bare ourselves for all to see.
It’s not just our erotic natures, our untamed cravings that could bewilder readers.
It’s hurt and rage — the subterranean stuff, much of it too unseemly, it seems to me,
for poetry to purify.” I tap him. “Do you agree?”
Truth is, I’m hesitant to translate into poetry the darker matter
of my compulsions, a tendency to scratch old wounds,
the surfeit of guilt and dread plaguing my dreams — especially the latter.
All this I deplore in myself, and more that I’m afraid to air.
Some nights, it’s as if I’m being devoured from within by a vampiric fiend.
A paralyzing sense of dissolution creeps in.
I gasp, staring into the dark, feeling like I’m barely there.
Besides, I’ve always been ambivalent about the con in fessing up,
distrusting performance in poetry, the kind strutting its truth.
Are there beaux mots for anguish?
How much is straight up, heads-up personal?
For most of us, what’s real is indelicate, uncouth.
“Too much confessing ends in a morass,” I tell him,
then wonder about redemption.
Do metaphors ensure ascension, help flowers grow in muck?
Plath was remorseless. She reified her angst
in striking, fertile tropes, whereas
I fear the gawking and mockery of the ruck.
Silently, I weigh my reasons, thinking:
it’s best to keep the curtains down on my proclivities, my sins.
Stretching an arm, I run my nails against the skin
of his shoulder, then dig in.
Reply to Mr. No Chance
His advice: “Slow down, let me sit back,
nip at the lines, phrasing, style.” He says
(I imagine with a salutary smile),
“As is, it’s well polished,
the wording — all studied picks,
’stead of being lightly plucked.”
He prefers a languorous strum,
writing that feels as if it’d been done
with ease — unlaboured, breezy,
evocative of cranes cruising insouciant
against a gold and silver sky.
Below them — why,
a seashore’s drawn-out susurration.
Above, blanched clouds nobly floating
in slow, procession-like thrums
of cotton, or frayed cloths
a coterie of laundresses
leisurely splayed out to dry
in gentle wafts of morning air.
He wants to be reminded of Tang Dynasty verse.
That could mean off-the-cuff, but deep;
light on the surface, dark beneath;
finely observed, emotive, albeit terse.
A sommelier, he can say ‘yay’ or ‘nay’,
(to my chagrin). He likes a tone that’s leisurely, serene,
yet with an obvious lilt.
Poetry must hummm,
resonate with bluesy beat, he says.
This is a sine qua non for him.
Leaning into each line of an MS
(sadly not mine,
nor any Parnassian kind),
should be like savouring mulled wine.
Or is it that he wants to mull over each line?
His comments bring winter holidays to mind.
Festivities are over. Outside, a dog’s bark
briefly disturbs the hush of night.
He sits by a window. Snow falls in the dark,
plying a veil of silvery white.
A wind barely ruffles the row of trees
guarding his small property.
Beyond this edge, a creek quiescent lies.
Orion’s stars glimmer overhead,
signalling tidings from bygone times.
He sips warmed wine, having read
a few of the lines with nodding head.
It’s late. He wants to go to bed.
Besides, the rhythm here — ho-hum;
It’s not that four beats per measure is humdrum,
but that the absence of syncopation
doesn’t jive with the absinthe in his libation.
I don’t like the verse you write
The verse you write isn’t all right.
It isn’t right when verse is trite.
Leonardo da Vinci’s Mother
Ah, Francis and the priest are here
To ease my passing from this life.
Yet my thoughts are on you, Signora,
Since you eased my way into this life—
A full one, though I grant, not sinless
Ask him to forgive me, madre!
I picture you clearly, as if you were before me—
Your gaze, as ever, reflective.
If I were to paint you now, carissima,
I’d make your eyes deeper
To capture their cinnamon mirth
When teasingly I said your name,
Not Caterina, but that curious
Diminutive of the one you received
At birth from Jacob, your father—
May he be blessed by the almighty
Who granted life to all of us.
This beatific vision, Santamaria!
Your constant, tender regard for all my needs
And those of others is my great solace.
Catching me in Nonno’s courtyard in Vinci
You’d hug me to your breast—such softness,
And from there rising, the scent of peach.
My breath would catch
When I’d turn to gaze up at you,
Your umber tresses, their soft sweep,
A contrast to the rose-white—antique-white
To be precise—of an ovaline face.
Light seemed drawn to your cheeks,
Coral-tinged lips, fine mouth.
I grasped your uncommon beauty even then,
And father admired you.
How often did I paint you, bellissima!
I made so many versions
In my mind’s eye and on canvas,
All those madonnas with plump infants—
All with your radiant love, innate grace,
And musing smile—reticent, serene.
Every virgin with child embodied your perfections.
The soulful suffering, forbearance, wisdom
I layered beneath your superlunary beauty.
And note, Madre, how you inspired the Oriental settings,
The natural wonders you spoke of, gazing past me,
I recreated them: mountain peaks, woods of thick oak,
Beech, chestnut, and the great sea
I rendered with azurite and ultramarine.
Your forebears lie in a distant land
Yet you remain my own, Circassian donna.
I declare, you were my salvation,
As I was yours, spirito amato.
Your rapt gaze, turned heavenward,
Brought me closer to God.
Olga Stein Bio
Olga Stein was born in the Former Soviet Union. She writes rhyming and non-rhyming verse, drawing on several literary traditions—that is, the Russian-language poetry she was introduced to as a child, and the British and Canadian canons she studied while growing up in Canada. Stein completed English and cultural studies, earning a PhD in contemporary Canadian fiction and cultural institutions. Stein teaches communications, sociology of sport, and modern and contemporary Canadian and American literature. Stein has a long history of working with literary literary publications. Here editorials, book reviews, and author interviews can be found on https://booksincanada.ca/. Most recently, Stein was the non-fiction editor for WordCity Literary Journal (a multi-genre, global online literary journal, https://wordcitylit.ca/), and contributed critical essays, editorials, interviews, and poems. Stein’s literary reviews are published by The Great Lakes Review and The Seabord Review of Books on a regular basis. Stein’s poetry has appeared in several international anthologies. Her debut poetry collection, Love Songs: Prayers to Gods, Not Men was published on July 31, 2025.
