Glad_Twentieth

Twentieth-Century Russian Poetry

Editor(s): 
John Glad
Editor(s): 
Daniel Weissbort


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1992
422 pages
Paper: 
$31.00
0-87745-365-9
978-0-87745-365-9

"A rare literary contribution to the English-speaking world."—Booklist

"The present volume [of Russian poetry] contains a superb 20-page explanatory introduction and excellent selection of hundreds of poems which will serve to open to the Western world the unique contribution Russia has made in this pleasurable art form."—Virginia Quarterly Review

"As an anthology of modern Russian poetry, this handsome volume offers a discriminating and generous selection, equal if not superior to any other of its kind."—Germano-Slavica

This celebrated anthology, first published in 1978 as Russian Poetry: The Modern Period, provides a much-needed panoramic overview of Russian poetry since the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917.

Major features of this collection include a new and expanded introduction, a substantial new section of glasnost-era poetry, a generous sampling of postrevolutionary poetry in Russia, full representation of poets of the first and second post-World War II generations, and poetry of the successive emigrations, flights, or expulsions from Russia.

Twentieth-Century Russian Poetry makes an important contribution to our continuing understanding of a changing world order. This anthology should be read by all those who wish to know more about the poetry of Russia, those interested in international cultural and literary history, and all Slavicists.

Table of contents: 

Contents

Introduction

Part I: Pre-World War II Poetry in Russia

 

Aleksandr Blok,

Night, a street,…

On the Plain of Kulikovo

Visitor

 

Vladimir Mayakovsky,

A Cloud in Trousers

A Good Attitude to Horses

 

Velemir Khelbnikov,

Me and Russia

The Burning Field (from The Laundress)

I went out…

To Everyone

Once more, once more

Trumpet, Shout, Carry!

The One Book

Iranian Song

Hey…y! Uh…hm!...

Lonely Masquerader

 

Nikolay Klyuev,

October, a copper-crawed cock

Can I tell you my love with a portrait

You twist your death in nooses

The sky lies blue—like a sea

A Conversational Melody, a Good Verse

Mother Sabbath

 

Sergey Yesenin

Winds, winds, winds

For My Sister Shura

Field upon field upon field

The golden birch grove’s

I regret nothing,…

Mysterious, ancient world of mine

 

Nikolay Gumilyov

The Streetcar That Lost Its Way

Childhood

First Canzone

Moon at Sea

Fragments 1920-1921

The Porcelain Pavilion

Pre-memory

A Baby Elephant

 

Osip Mandelshtam

The valley bleeds with Roman rust

I am deaf

Because I let go your hands

Insomnia…

Like grumbling Roman plebs

Notre Dame

Leningrad

In this cool transparent spring

I drink to the ashes of war…

Where can I hide in January

I hate the light

On stony Pierian spurs

Lamarck

 

Anna Akhmatova

So, I remained alone

We do not know how to say goodbye

A Dream

There is a boundary…

The Visitor

Requiem

 

Maria Petrovykh

The air is motionless with heat

 

Maximilian Voloshin

Holy Russia

 

Boris Pasternak

A Sultry Night

To love,…

Storm, an Endless Instant

The Mirror

Don’t Touch

Moochkap

As with Them

Let the words…

To be famous isn’t decent,…

 

Nikolay Zabolotsky

The Face of a Horse

Snakes

All that my soul possessed…

The Loop Canal

At the Fishmonger’s

Nocturnal Garden

Poem about Rain

Popryshchin

Yesterday reflecting upon death

Metamorphoses

Warning

 

Daniil Kharms

Death of the Wild Warrior

 

Aleksandr Vvedensky

Where

 

Joseph Utkin

The Tale of Red-Haired Motele, Mister Inspector, Rabbi Isaiah and Commissar Blokh

 

Ilya Ehrenburg

Our grandsons will be astonished

 

Nikolay Tikhonov

Fire and rope, bullet and axe—

 

Part II: Pre-World War II Émigré Poetry

 

Marina Tsvetayeva

The Horn of Roland

To kiss a forehead is to erase worry—

An Ancient Song

An Attempt at Jealousy

Poems to Blok

 

Anatoly Steiger

It is an ancient custom

They will not ask us:…

Nobody waits…

How can I shout,…

How do we break the habit…

…Not an epilogue…

Friendship

The dull rattle of shutters

Until the sun sinks…

We believe books and music

 

Boris Poplavsky

Another Planet

 

Don Aminado

Our Sunday Rest

 

Vladislav Khodasevich

Music

Monkey

The Automobile

The Bride

Dactyls

On the Death of my Tomcat Murr

A Monument

 

Dovid Knut

I was walking…

I remember a dim evening…

 

Vyacheslav Ivanov

The Winter Sonnets

 

Aleksandr Vertinsky

I remember the night

 

Part III: Post-World War II Poetry in Russia

 

Pavel Antokolsky

From Son

 

Ilya Selvinsky

I Saw It!

 

Olga Berggolts

A Wish

To My Sister

The Blockade Swallow

Don’t turn around…

My insatiable memory…

Indian Summer

 

Boris Slutsky

The Bathhouse

Law…

God

Horses in the Ocean

The Hospital

My Friends

Coppers

My old men are dying—

 

Semyon Gudzenko

Before the Attack

 

Sergey Narovchatov

In Those Years

 

Vladimir Soloukhin

The Wind How to Drink the Sea

For the Tree to Sing

The Apple

 

Konstantin Vanshenkin

We came back late from visiting

Rain

The forest in winter!...

The girl dreams of her lover…

The Path

The sunset fades…

 

Yevgeny Vinokurov

When the Parachute Does Not Open

I don’t remember him

Eyes

Objects (from the cycle “History”)

I do not like the circus

Adam

Has the time come…

All Grows Old

 

Bulat Okudzhava

François Villon

I never soared,…

Once there was a soldier boy

Save us, the poets, save us…

 

Bella Akhmadulina

A Chill

Fifteen boys, or perhaps even more

Lunatics

The Snow Maiden

A Queen

I was so buoyant

 

Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Dwarf Birches

A hundred miles from the Capital City of Hope

 

Andrey Voznesensky

Mayakovsky in Paris

The Beatnik’s Monologue

Striptease

A New Year’s Letter in Warsaw

From the Window of a Plane

 

Yunna Morits

Memorandum

The Leader

The Fisherman

 

Aleksandr Kushner

A Picture

Don’t bother about the news!

The Airman

The Oak

The star burns out over the tree tops

To B. P.

 

Robert Rozhdestvensky

The Winter of Thirty-Eight

They Killed the Lad

Nostalgia

 

Maya Borisova

The dry birch tree stood

It’s not when they leave

 

Viktor Sosnora

Do you envy, my comrades-in-arms

Where are our horses, our black horses?

The Owl and the Mouse

The Footsteps of an Owl and His Lament

 

Novella Matveyeva

I’m no fighting man, he says

The Ginger-Haired Girl

The eggplants have pins and needles

Re-Conversion

 

Vyacheslav Kupriyanov

For a long time he tried to survive

A Lesson in Natural History

Everything gets forgotten

 

Part IV: Post-World War II Émigré Poetry

 

Nina Berberova

To Shakespeare

 

Nikolay Morshen

In superstitious panic

A Storm

At the Lighthouse

The Andreyevsky Church

 

Georgy Ivanov

The old man shuffles to the fish market

Oh, how fastidious you once were

A quarter century of exile has passed

Should I tell of all the absolute fools

Unharnessed, the white horse ambles along

On the boundary of snow and melting

Not so long ago, the world was complete—

 

Yury Odarchenko

Only for you my tea roses

The path I’m following…

Claudia Petrovna

 

Yury Ivask

Shall we forget the shiver

Emily Dickinson

Ode for the Dancing Khlysty

 

Igor Chinnov

Do you think we might go to Hell too?

A black bird…

A gust of memory…

In the land of Schlaraffenland

An instance of fore-ordained harmony

 

Ivan Elagin

My murderer is no thief

Amnesty

 

Boris Nartsissov

A Marated Bastilled age

 

Part V: The New Wave in Russia

 

Yury Galanskov

The Intellectual

Murder

I am in pain

The Last Platform

The bird-cherry was my wife

It shames one to look

 

Vladimir Burich

Precepts for City Living

 

Vsevolod Nekrasov

And I Speak of Cosmic Things

 

Genrikh Sabgir

Radio Gibberish

 

Igor Khomin

They drank. That ate. They smoked

They met at the Tagansky subway station

A dike, a flower bed, a bare linden tree

 

Sergey Chudakov

Suicide is a duel with yourself

When the cry goes up: “Man overboard!”

 

Dmitry Bobyshev

Indifference

 

Sergey Morozov

Poem about the Blue Horse

 

Nikolay Novikov

White on white’s a flatness

From the cycle Stone and Sky

 

Mikhail Yeryomin

Faceted grains of wisdom

 

Vladimir Uflyand

It has for ages been observed

The peasant

The working week comes to an end

Now, at last, even NIkifor’s a suitor

 

Yevgeny Rein

Monastery

Breakfast on the Balcony

 

Viktor Krivulin

The Idea of Russia

Southwest

And the silver age…

Two in a Room

Guard

 

Yelena Shvarts

Imitation of Boileau

My heart’s cloth I shall spread before the Savior’s feet

 

Gennady Aygi

Death

Rustle of Birches

Poppies of This Year

 

A. Velichansky

Trunks of birches, like scrolls

The policeman does not blow his whistle

In the evil time

Kalmyk poppies, horde of pan-Mongol tulips

The flame’s speech is confused. The muttering of the water is hollow

Memory of the past grows paler with each day

The infant is white, like down. And the youth dark-complexioned, like shingle

 

Part VI: The Newest Émigré Wave

 

Joseph Brodsky

Lagoon

From Sonnets on the Statue of Mary, Queen of Scots, in the Luxembourg Gardens, Paris

 

Mikhail Grobman

In mass graves the bodies of plants

 

Andrey Amalrik

Lake Baskunchak

 

Natalya Gorbanevskaya

Square of the Holy Passion…

A curse! Joy! Writing!

The savage cold of Russian winters

Hold out a handful of snow

Hurry, take pleasure in the oblique caress of rain…

Drought, malevolent stepmother

That time I did not save Warsaw…

It is time to think…

 

Yury Iofe

A Thing or Two about Childhood

The Olsanski Cemetery

 

Naum Korzhavin

We can string words…

 

Aleksandr Galich

Hospital Gypsy Song

The Goldminers’ Waltz

 

Edward Limonov

As if a quiet branch drew a line

From Secret Notebook

 

Lev Mak

Behind the Slaughterhouse, Evening

Farewell to Russia

 

Pyotr Vegin

“Moscow” Pool

Explanation of a Sign

 

Lev Loseff

Conversation with a New York Poet

The Petrograd Side

“I know—the Mongol yoke, the years of famie…”

 

Aleksey Tsvetkov

Like a ruddy child you fall asleep in September

To the apostles of history

 

Yury Kublanovsky

In Memory of John Keats

From In Petrograd

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