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Unknown: [Introductory Music] Yevgeny Slivkin: [Reading a poem in Russian] Morton Marcus: That was Yevgeny Slivkin, the Russian poet reading a poem about Monterey and the Pacific Ocean. And he is

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our guest tonight, along with his wife, Kirsten Rutsala, who is a Russian scholar. And we are delighted to have them both on the show, not only talking about Yevgeny's poetry, but talking about Russian poetry, in general. Yevgeny, welcome.

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Yevgeny Slivkin: Thank you. Glad to be here. Morton Marcus: Good, and Kirsten, it's great to have you on the show. Kirsten Rutsala: Thank you. I'm delighted to be here.

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Morton Marcus: If her name sounds familiar to you, we have had her father on the show and I have also done programs on Vern Rutsala when he was not here. And he is of course a wonderful American poet. Great to have you on here. I'm glad we're finally

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doing this. And I'm going to ask Yevgeny some questions, and we'll just get the ball rolling right now. Yevgeny, where were you born and what year? Yevgeny Slivkin: I was born 50 years ago. It sounds terrible.

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But I was actually born in a very nice place. I was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia, then Leningrad, of course. Morton Marcus: Right, so you were born a few years after Stalin's death.

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Yevgeny Slivkin: Yes, something like that. Morton Marcus: And you went to school through the Soviet school system. Yevgeny Slivkin: Yes. Actually, since you mentioned Stalin,

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Mort, it's interesting. My parents got acquainted on the day of his death. Morton Marcus: Oh. Yevgeny Slivkin: The same day. Yeah.

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Morton Marcus: Were they celebrating? Yevgeny Slivkin: They were party- they were partying, so it tells a lot about their morality, probably. [Laughter] Morton Marcus: So you went through the school system and

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you started writing poetry. When and why did you start writing poetry? Yevgeny Slivkin: Well, you know, all the Russian children read Pushkin- Pushkin's tales. They all read, ultra-romantic

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Lermontov's long poems, so I was one of these typical Russian Soviet kids, who was taught Pushkin and Lermontov at school, but I was kind of very funny and super sensitive kid. So I wanted to imitate these poems and I started imitating Lermontov, as

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far as I remember, and my parents were very amused by that. So when I started producing something a little bit more original, approximately at the age of nine, my mother, as far as I remember, just grabbed me by a hand and took me to -

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very famous at that time in Leningrad - children's literary club, which was called [unidentified], "Endeavor." So and then I found myself in that [unidentified] free thinking and sincere discussions, not Soviet style discussions at all, about

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everything. Because we had great people who worked with us there through a couple of liberal members of the Union of Soviet Writers, and just great teachers of literature. So, at the age of 17, I think, I was- I had already passed the point of

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return. So my parents just rued the day they brought me to the club. Morton Marcus: And Americans call it being hooked. Yevgeny Slivkin: Being hooked. Right.

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Morton Marcus: So you went on and you became part of the Writers Union- Soviet Writers Union. Yevgeny Slivkin: Well, I was admitted to the Writers Union only in 1998. It was Perestroika, yes, already. Yes.

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Sure. Morton Marcus: Okay. And you've had three books out in Russia? Yevgeny Slivkin: Yes, yes, I published three books. First one- I'm proud of the first one because it came out still in

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Soviet Union, and was published by [unidentified] major Soviet writer- major publishing house in 1990. Morton Marcus: So, um, you then- How did you get to America? United States?

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Yevgeny Slivkin: Well, it's a long story. Morton Marcus: Okay. Yevgeny Slivkin: We don't have much time. Morton Marcus: Okay.

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Yevgeny Slivkin: No, [laughs], of course. I just wanted to write a doctoral dissertation, Russian literature, and in an early 1990s it was- it was for me almost impossible to do in Russia due to financial reason. So I figured out that it would

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be easy for me to do it in America. Morton Marcus: So you came over here. Did you get a scholarship, or were just admitted to come over as a student? Yevgeny Slivkin: Ah, no, I first- I first was just a

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broadcaster for the Radio Liberty, Free Europe. And I also was teaching at Georgetown University and George Washington University in Washington DC. And then, when I became confident a little bit about my English, which I was wrong, I- I applied

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to the University of Illinois. Where I met Kirsten. Morton Marcus: Okay. So you- but you were over here already, though. Yevgeny Slivkin: Yes.

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Morton Marcus: So you had applied for a visa to leave from the Soviet Union. That was fine. Yevgeny Slivkin: No, it was a little bit more complicated story.

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Morton Marcus: Okay, but you got- Yevgeny Slivkin: I don't want to give up all my secrets. Morton Marcus: I don't want them. I've got enough of my own. I'm okay. What is it like now because I- and I, you know, I

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know Andrei Codrescu, I knew Miłosz. To be an exile, really, in the United States, to really write in another language, let's sort of discuss the different aspects of this. Um, do you feel first of all that you- you lose something?

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Yevgeny Slivkin: Generally speaking, I believe that a prose writer depends on his native language more strongly than a poet does. For a prose writer, who writes on contemporary topics, especially the language his characters speak is an

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essence of their images, right? That is why the slightest stylistic or lexical changes in everyday language are very important to a prose writer. When he is separated from the language which real people in his country speak on the

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streets, his works inevitably lose their artistic strength, at least part of their artistic strength. Exceptions are few, and they just confirm form the rule. That is why, by the way, many Russian émigré prose writers tend to turn to

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historical novels. Solzhenitsyn, for example, when he was living in America, he was preoccupied with his literally [unidentified] his historical [unidentified] also his last two novels, historical novels. On the other hand, a poet deals

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mostly with a metaphysical reality and he can describe this reality with language which is inherent to his inner self. And this language does not necessarily correspond with the latest changes in his native spoken language.

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Morton Marcus: So, do you think that- you think therefore that you have not lost any- any power, though your audience is- is actually in another country over the ocean? Yevgeny Slivkin: Well, my last book came out in Russia. I often

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publish my new poems in literary magazines in Russia. So for my- for the narrow toggle(?) of my readers, I'm still there. Morton Marcus: Interesting. Yevgeny Slivkin: Yeah.

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Morton Marcus: Yeah, I know that, well Codrescu, of course, speaks in English. And I've told him I think he's a much better prose writer than he is a poet, and he's produced much more prose than he has poetry since his early years. But Miłosz

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certainly did not feel- he felt like a- an exile over here. He did. Yes. Yeah. And even though he spoke English, he- he would never translate his own stuff. He would give people a hard time who was translating his stuff, but he would never translate his

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own stuff and he just really felt that he was in exile. Yevgeny Slivkin: Yes. Miłosz emigrated during the Cold War. So [unidentified] was quite different. He probably never dreamt of seeing Poland again.

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Morton Marcus: Well, okay and in the same area, and it's almost like you've given me the answer, but I wouldn't be surprised if you reverse yourself now. Has American poetry influenced your poetry?

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Yevgeny Slivkin: I don't think so. Because unfortunately- unfortunately, there is a kind of- although I should be ashamed to say that because I'm the son in law of one of the major American poets, but there is kind of glass- wall of glass

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between me and contemporary American poetry. Morton Marcus: Now, obviously, what is that wall? And who put it up? Yevgeny Slivkin: Probably I put it up myself- by myself

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psychologically. In other words- in other words, I will simplify everything, of course, but I read the poem- poetry texts written in English by American poets, I understand everything, but one thing. I don't understand why it is poetry

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[laughs]. Morton Marcus: Okay. And I think you're talking about maybe form and meter? Yevgeny Slivkin: Sure.

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Morton Marcus: Yeah. Okay. Yevgeny Slivkin: Sure. Morton Marcus: Very, very interesting. Um, before we get on to that, and we will get on to that in like- one minute.

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What about other Russian poets? People like [unidentified], etc, etc. People have reputations over here. Have they been influenced by American poetry? Yevgeny Slivkin: If American poetry didn't influence Russian

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poetry, the work of literary translators would make absolutely no sense, of course. Edgar Allan Poe poetry influenced Russian symbolism of the end of the 19th century, for example,. Of course, a major influence came from French

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symbolism, but Poe's poetry was also very important. But the most celebrated case was the influence of Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" on the greatest innovator for us in the course of the 20th century. Velimir Khlebnikov, the leader

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of the Russian movement, the leader of the Futurist movement in Russian poetry. Khlebnikov did not read English, but when the "Leaves of Grass" appeared in the Russian translation made by Kornei Chukovsky in the 1910s, Khlebnikov literally

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could not part with this book, he would carry it in his pocket everywhere. The most recent example, young Brodsky's encounter with T.S. Eliot poetry played a role in the development of his further poetics. It's interesting, by the way, how

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Brodsky read Eliot. I heard this story from him. He didn't know much English at the time when Eliot's book came into his possession. And when his older poet friend asked him how he was going to read Eliot in the original, he said that he would

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read every line with a dictionary. And reading him this way he would perform, he would perform approximately the same work that Eliot performed when he was composing his poems. So he would penetrate the text more deeply than if he read it

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fluently in English. Morton Marcus: It's a great story. Yevgeny Slivkin: Absolutely. Morton Marcus: And, of course, the Brodsky, again, he's talking

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about is Joseph Brodsky, who lived his last years in the United States. You mentioned Khlebnikov as being the most important innovator, head of the Futurists, could we hear one or two Khlebnikov poems? Either in Russian and English? Or both? Or

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one or the other, Yevgeny Slivkin: No, yes, but- I want to- Morton Marcus: Please introduce him. Yeah. Yevgeny Slivkin: I want our listeners to be aware that

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Khlebnikov is almost untranslatable. So, English translation which we would like we would ask Carson to read probably is just literal translation. Morton Marcus: Okay. Understood.

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Yevgeny Slivkin: But let us read his famous poem "Kuznechik" actually, every great Russian poet has his poem entitled kuznechik. [Reading in Russian] is written in 1909.

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Kirsten Rutsala: And the translation is, the title is "Grasshopper." "Kuznechik" means GRASSHOPPER Wing letting with the golden scrawl of its finest sinews. The

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grasshopper loaded its trailer with many coastal herbs and faith. Ping Ping Ping, he tralad. Oh, s'wonderful. Oh illuminate! So you can see lots of neologism.

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But how to render this combination [quote in Russian] is just impossible. Morton Marcus: And you know, out there just listen to the language and listen to how the sounds of vowels, and the sounds

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of consonants are being used. Even of course, obviously, though you can understand the poetry and again, well I guess it's- this is a good point- I want to get into your poetry but it's a good point to talk about. The idea of, of how one

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translates from the Russian poetry because I'd always heard, you know, that Pushkin is the great idol of Russia, the Shakespeare of Russia. But when his poems come into English, no matter who is translating them, they just sound like doggerel.

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And that's, that's not a criticism. It's just that obviously, there is a huge gulf in what can be brought into the English language from Russian. Yevgeny Slivkin: I remember when Nabokov was quoted in one of

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these articles, some French one who said that for European readers, Pushkin is like a Russian champagne. Morton Marcus: [Laughter] Kirsten Rutsala: Yeah,.

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Morton Marcus: Yes, Russian champagne isn't too well known. Yevgeny Slivkin: But actually is good. [Laughter] [inaudible] is good. Kirsten Rutsala: It's true that Pushkin is virtually

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untranslatable. I think there have been maybe seven or eight different versions of "Yevgeny Onegin" none of which have been successful. Morton Marcus: Even Nabokov?

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Kirsten Rutsala: Oh, no, I mean that- that's the- the commentary is beautiful, but the actual translation is, is useful from a scholarly point of view, but it isn't poetry by any means. Morton Marcus: Have you, Kirsten, found any inroads into

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translation? Kirsten Rutsala: Personally, as a translator? Morton Marcus: As a translator, yeah. Kirsten Rutsala: Well, I enjoy translating just for fun, but

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it's very, very difficult to even- producing an interlinear literal translation from Russian to English is very difficult. Morton Marcus: Could you give us some reasons why? Kirsten Rutsala: Well, I'm just thinking about Pushkin in

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particular. Roman Jakobson sometimes- has called it "the poetry of grammar." If you look at some of Pushkin's lyrics, he doesn't use a great deal of metaphor. The- what makes the poems so beautiful is the precise use of language, placing

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subjects and objects and direct objects in complicated patterns. Because Russian is an inflected language with cases you can do that. In English, you simply can't because we, we rely on word order for meaning. So that's one- one reason that

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makes translating from Russian to English so difficult. Morton Marcus: Well, it's- that's a good reason to start us off. Let's hear a poem of yours, Yevgeny, and then Kirsten will read the translation of it, which I think it is a literal

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translation. Yes. [Cross talk] But before we go into this, because I want the readers to listen, it- from the conversations that we've had, it seems as though your definition of poetry is poetry that is in meter, that is rhymed, and is-

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is the real old style of poetry. Yevgeny Slivkin: Old style, is old style for you. Not for Russians. Yes, it's a traditional Russian definition of poetry due to the

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specifics of Russian language Richard Carson just mentioned. But of course, the free verse does exist in contemporary Russian poetry, but on the periphery. Morton Marcus: So it's still very, very traditional.

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Yevgeny Slivkin: It's the same way like rhymed verse exists here in America on the periphery. Morton Marcus: Interesting. Interesting. Um, and I didn't mean to say old fashioned. But the you know, the minute you

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said that, you don't know why American poetry is American poetry, and the glass wall is up. It's too bad, you know, that when Lew Turco was out here, you weren't able to say this to him, because you would have made him the happiest human being. And

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your dad and I would, your dad would- I would have stopped picking on him. Yevgeny Slivkin: It was- was it- Morton Marcus: Did you- did you tell Vern this when he was here;

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does he know this? Yevgeny Slivkin: I won't tell him. [Laughter] Morton Marcus: I've got to hear the results! [Laughter] Yevgeny Slivkin: You know that I've translated Vern's poetry,

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so I'm not so rigid about that, of course. But if I remember correctly, it was Robert Frost who said that writing poetry without rhymes is like playing tennis without a net,

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Morton Marcus: Yes. In fact, it was- reading some of his stuff, Ezra Pound sent him a letter when Pound was a big influence back in the 20s. And he said, you'll make a really fine poet when you stop writing in meter and rhyme, and I invite you to

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this magazine, you know, with some new stuff. And the story goes that Frost never replied, but that the next things he wrote was the sonnet sequence. So anyway, let's hear from some of your poetry and then we'll have Kirsten translate.

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Yevgeny Slivkin: Okay, let's try PASKHA [Reads poem in Russian] Kirsten Rutsala: So this poem is called EASTER,

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Yevgeny Slivkin: Russian Easter. Kirsten Rutsala: Well, [laughs] yes, that's implied. Suddenly a heart beat dully in the refrigerator, a naked chicken threw her breast against the door, like a free bird who

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can fly and take risks. She rived and cackled to the amusement of the frankfurters. The products were sleeping sluggishly. One sausage said in a deep voice, "Enough beating the drum, chicken. All is lost for you. Look, your body is

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already covered in goose pimples." The herring under the onion stared with an intense yellow eye. The meat like a melting mountain towered over her. "I am turning green," he moaned in his sleep, "turning green." In a white glass bottle,

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the vodka was cooling until midnight, the hen continued rising, hoping like an idiot. Yevgeny Slivkin: You know, sometimes the exact literal translation could sound much better than what Nabokov

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derogatorily called artistic translation. Morton Marcus: Now, though, obviously, you know, and I hope everyone out there could hear the rhymes and hear the beats of the lines. as you're getting read. Actually you're very

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influenced by surrealism. Yevgeny Slivkin: It's not stream of consciousness. Morton Marcus: Not stream of consciousness, but what we would call - pardon the American some for adulterating everything -

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"the deep image." I mean this it's- Yevgeny Slivkin: Yes, I understand what you mean. Yes, I was very attentive to Surrealist poetics. I read all French surrealist poets, who were translated into Russian,

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also read something in English. And my teacher in poetry. Great Russian poet, Victor Sosnora, he's a surrealist. Morton Marcus: Okay. Yevgeny Slivkin: Yeah. Although I didn't follow in his

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footsteps. Morton Marcus: Okay. And of course, there was an awful lot of humor in that last poem, too. We must acknowledge that in case the people out there [cross talk] you frightened everyone

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[laughter]. Let's hear another poem. And I should say looking at these poems they are in quatrains; and how are they rhymed? Are they A-B, A-B?

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Yevgeny Slivkin: Different, there's one A-B, A-B, but the poem I read has parallel rhymes. Morton Marcus: Okay. Yevgeny Slivkin: LEGKIY PAR

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[Poem in Russian] Kirsten Rutsala: And the literal translation of the title is "light steam," which doesn't really mean anything in English. So the alternative translation is:

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IN THE BATH HOUSE, which is where it takes place. A child so lost and pitiful stares at the adults among their bare lines in the overcrowded changing room. He would return to the fetal position to keep from crying and slip away,

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before it is too late, from his little pink body. His eyes cry out, "Get away from me" from the corner where he has been crushed by their backsides, but his progenitor puts him on the bench and rubs him with a rough towel. And there is already no escape

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for him from this hairy forest, where an enchanted childhood is fleshy with extra weight. He is doomed to run along, his ears crumpled under his hat, like a little hunted down mouse with a melancholy horror in the knapsack of his handwashed

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scrotum. Morton Marcus: Wonderful, wonderful poem. We are- we're talking with Yevgeny Slivkin, a Russian poet, and his translator and Russian scholar Kirsten Rutsala. We will return after a

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short musical break. And we will get back to our guests tonight after two announcements. One, Friday, June 16 at two at 7pm. "Somewhere I Have Never Traveled," a poetry concert with Jami Sieber on

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cello and Kim Rosen doing poetry and spoken word at the Cayuga Vault, Santa Cruz. Tickets are available at Gateway's Bookstore and at the Cayuga Vault. Then on Saturday, June 17, from one to 5pm there is a poetry dive, an experimental adventure and

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writing workshop with Kim Rosen. And it's either Jaime or Jami Sieber, I'm gonna say Jami, through the portal of poetry and music that releases a creative a surge of words dance and sound. Again, one to 5pm on Sunday at the Cayuga Vault, that's

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Saturday, pardon me, Saturday one to five. And the day before that, on Friday at 7pm, the poetry concert with Sieber and Rosen. The Community Advisory Board of KUSP in the Pataphysical Broadcasting Foundation meets regularly and

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the public is invited to attend. The June meeting is on tomorrow evening beginning at 6:30pm. at West Marine Support Center conference room 500, West Ridge Drive in Watsonville. Call the station during business hours for more information. Our

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numbers are 476-2800 or 800-655-5877. And again, this is the- the June meeting of the Board of KUSP. So if you want to attend and want more information I want that address repeated. It's called 476-2800 or 800-655-5877. Now we are going

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to get back to our interview with Yevgeny Slavkin, the Russian poet living in the United States now, and the Russian scholar extraordinaire who will be teaching at the University of Oklahoma next year. And that is Kirsten

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Rutsala. So since you are living over here, are there any significant Russian poets living in the United States right now? Yevgeny Slivkin: Actually, yes, actually, as I would name two parts, whom I consider just extraordinary and both are well

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known in Russia, Vladimir Gandelsman, who lives in New York and who proceeding from the traditions of Mandelstam, Pasternak, and Brosky creates his own original poetics. In his poetry he walks a very thin border between traditional and

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non-traditional versification. Another poet- Morton Marcus: And how- how do you spell his last name? Yevgeny Slivkin: Gandelsman: G-A-N-D-E-L-S-M-A-N. Morton Marcus: Gandelsman, and his first thing was Victor?

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Yevgeny Slivkin: Vladimir. Vladimir Gandelsman. Morton Marcus: Okay. Are there translations of his pieces and- Yevgeny Slivkin: I have never seen his poems in English. He himself was a wonderful translator, by the way, of

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American- of American poetry. I believe he translated James. James Merrill. Morton Marcus: Oh, okay. Yevgeny Slivkin: Beautifully. Maybe his translation better

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than the original. Morton Marcus: I'm getting the picture here. [Laughter] As you know, Merrill was a very metrically focused poet. I mean, he was a master of [cross talk]

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Yevgeny Slivkin: That's why Vladimir had chosen his poetry to translate. The other poet is Katia Kapovich, whom I have never met. She lives in Boston. The precision of her poetics come-

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comes from Akhmatova. The tension and tone in her poetry comes from Marina Tsvetaeva. This amalgamation of two quite different traditions creates an original and tense poetic work, unfortunately, I didn't bring her books with me. I can't read

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anything, and [unidentified] Morton Marcus: I'm getting the impression here about the superiority of Russian poetry. So is it possible you could formulate in a few words the main shortcomings as well as the

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main merits of today's Russian poetry? Yevgeny Slivkin: The main problem is that today, anyone who writes poetry in Russian must deal with a multi-voiced 200 year long past of Russian poetry. What I mean by that is

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that in his work a poet depends on a certain stylistic context. Adhering, with only minor modifications to the poetic system in use at the time, a poet could, nevertheless insist on his own individuality and become [unidentified] with it.

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And that is the attitude of the majority of highly talented poets writing in Russian. And, as I see it, it's a sign that contemporary Russian poetry is on sudden decline. So I don't claim superiorities. I guess [cross talk] There is hope, you

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know, the hope for us in poetry is that sooner or later I believe to a quickly changing society in Russia, it will happen sooner rather than later, a new generation will come who- who I suppose will understand that the originality of a

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contemporary poet manifests itself not in the way he borrows from and makes a reference to the work of others, but rather in dismissing all established stylistic context. Anyway, you know the ancient Greeks said something that could be

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translated as, "It is necessary to travel by the sea because the sea exists." Since the wonderfully rich and rapidly changing language, a language in the making, the Russian language does exist, is absolutely necessary to write poetry in

00:37:01.020 - 00:37:13.120

this language. Morton Marcus: Well, you know, and you mentioned Greek and the Greek saying, well, the fact is that's the problem with Greek poetry. And it, I'll tell you how they solved that problem.

00:37:14.710 - 00:37:30.970

They had really lost classical Greek, speaking Attic Greek. And when the revolution of 1821 came about, they tried to get a pure language, which was called Katharevousa. But it was not spoken by the people. So the poetry that came out in the 19th

00:37:30.970 - 00:37:43.860

century was amazingly ineffective. And even though- Yevgeny Slivkin: Artificial. Morton Marcus: Yes, it was very artificial. And what they found out was what American poetry is doing now, which is the language

00:37:43.890 - 00:38:00.630

of the people that demotic is the way they began to write poetry in the 20th century, and it has been the new vitality of Greek poetry. People like Seferis and Elytis and of course Yiannis Ritsos have used it, eve though they've also used met

00:38:01.230 - 00:38:13.580

ical forms and stanzaic form in the [unidentified] ol ballad form. It's still what's finding that revitalization in the spoken language of the peop e. Yevgeny Slivkin: How about Cavafys' lanuguage, he's my

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favorite? Morton Marcus: Yeah, and Cavafy's is a different story, because he was an Alexandrian Greek. And so he- and he was- it was at the turn of the century, that was earlier than the poets

00:38:25.220 - 00:38:40.700

that I mentioned. And so he's going back, almost to a- I almost would say, a Byzantine tradition as well as a Greek tradition. But yeah, that's a very interesting person to bring up. But also very plain, his language, in translation anyway

00:38:40.700 - 00:38:53.750

it's very, very, [cross talk] very, very lucid. Let's hear some more of your poetry, at least one more of your poems, and then I will want you to go into some contemporary Russian poets.

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Yevgeny Slivkin: Yeah, sure with all my pleasure. I will read a poem from my most recent book, which is entitled, "Sad Prerii" - "Prairie Garden." So some American realities in the book.

00:39:24.130 - 00:40:46.090

PIKNIK VYPUSKNOY [Reads poem in Russian] Morton Marcus: And that sounds me like you used a lot of the same rhymes. Is it- was my ear beside- betraying me. It sounded

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much, much more complex than the other two poems that you read. Yevgeny Slivkin: The system of rhyming is more complex in this. Morton Marcus: And you- you're going over lines, weren't you? You have much more than you were in those other poems.

00:40:59.630 - 00:41:05.270

Yes, yes. is a complicated syntax. Great, very interesting. Let's hear what it sounds like in English, Kirsten. Kirsten Rutsala: Okay.

00:41:05.840 - 00:41:22.750

A GRADUATION PICNIC Under a laurel the table is set, non-alcoholic poison is poured into the glasses of green mouthed Masters of Business Administration. Napkins blown by the wind cover the grass. Their

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mouths having put definite and indefinite articles in place, blend the English language born to their palates as if in a crucible with their teeth and Wrigley's product. Their lips with sticky cookie crumbs cast reflections in the artificial

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pond, and excited fish sown in a foodless place. soar to the surface by mistake and catch nothing except a smile diluted by the water. In a similar way in the future, hungry nations, not brought to their senses by economic laws will swim up from

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the bottom of the bloody ponds of freedom toward well groomed adult hands. Well, for now, in accordance with the local, also unalterable laws, one is prohibited from being lenient to the wordless creatures by crumbling half eaten cookies

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into the water. Morton Marcus: Very interesting. Was this poem written in Illinois? Yevgeny Slivkin: I believe, I believe in California already.

00:42:37.130 - 00:42:54.570

Morton Marcus: I was wondering if there is your graduation from Champagne. Okay, let us go into some contemporary poets and tell us something about them. Yevgeny Slivkin: Well, no, Mort, actually, I could name at least

00:42:54.600 - 00:43:18.300

15, 20 contemporary Russian poets any European literature would be proud to possess. But I will name only two because these days I'm thinking a lot about them. They both died recently, unfortunately. The first poet is Boris Ryzhy, whom I never met.

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He lived in the big provincial city of Yekaterinburg in the Ural region. He came to prominence after several publications appeared in Saint Petersburg and Moscow lin iterary magazines in the early 1990s. And he quickly started to

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be considered the hope of young Russian poetry. His book was published, he received the Russian Booker Prize in Poetry, and he actually became a part of the Moscow literary establishment. His poetry is a literary phenomenon of the po

00:44:01.080 - 00:44:22.530

t-Soviet period. It's sort of j venile, melodramatic, sent mental, but at the same time is bright, musical and very sinc re. There is such a notion in t e theater as stage pres nce, not all even good acto s have it. There is some

00:44:22.530 - 00:44:42.630

hing like stage presence is poet y- in poetry too. Ryzhy as a per on, as a human being is viv dly present in all his poe s. I think I will read one sho t poem. It is in Russian. ZAVESHCHANIYE

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It's not rhymed, by the way. [Reads poem in Russian] in 1993. Kirsten, could you please read the literal translation Morton Marcus: It is in meter, though?

00:45:43.400 - 00:45:56.360

Yevgeny Slivkin: Yes, symmetric verse, but not rhymed. Kirsten Rutsala: It's called THE WILL, as in the last will. Let's agree to this. When I die, you will put up a cross on my

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grave. Let it be like all other crosses in outward appearance, but we, dear friend, will know that this is just embellishment. As an illiterate leaves his mark on paper I want to leave a cross in this world. I want to leave a cross. I was at odds with the

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grammar of life. I read my fate, but understood nothing. I am used only to blows at which like teeth, letters fall from my mouth, and they smell of blood. Yevgeny Slivkin: You see what I meant saying that this poet is a

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bit juvenile and melodramatic. But if you read or listen to this form once you will never forget it. You'll never forget this image. So extraordinarily talented poet, unfortunately, I mean, he committed suicide several years ago. He was just

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26 years old. Morton Marcus: 26, oh boy! Yevgeny Slivkin: Yes. Like Lermentov. Lermentov was 27. Another poet I would like to mention is Boris Victorov, whom

00:47:04.780 - 00:47:28.030

I imagined, with whom I was close in Moscow in the 1980s. Also Victorov, unlike all other non-conformist Russian poets of the 1960s 1980s, was a member of the Union of the Soviet Writers. He couldn't publish a single book in the capital prior to

00:47:28.990 - 00:47:48.040

1999. His six collections of poetry appeared in Kishinev, Moldova. It is the place where he spent his adolescent years, and Moldova aesthetic seems as she was relaxed as it was in some other districts of the former Soviet Union, which were

00:47:48.040 - 00:48:13.480

far removed from the capital. So Victorov's only Muscovite collection of poetry entitled "Chelokon" passed almost- almost unnoticed. Actually it was just 500 copies published. However, shortly before his death in 2004 Victorov was called, "a

00:48:13.510 - 00:48:28.660

remarkable poet, underappreciated by his contemporaries to their own shame," by the literary critic Tatiana Bek in "Nezavisimaia gazeta", "Independent Newspaper," and several months after his death, he was praised

00:48:29.380 - 00:48:46.330

by the famous Russian theatre director, actor and poetry expert Sergei Uirskii in the "Literaturnaia gazeta," "Literary Newspaper," as "an outstanding phenomenon of contemporary Russian poetry." I see that central motif of

00:48:46.360 - 00:49:10.450

"Chelokon." Chelokon is a word of his own coinage. Chelokon: "chelo" is the first syllables, two syllables of Russian word "chelovek", a man, a person, and kon, "kon" is a horse. So Chelokon, kind of centaur, I see as a central motif for

00:49:10.450 - 00:49:30.250

"Chelokon" as built around the image of Velimir Khlebnikov, and that of that mythological, prophetic horse-like beast, Kitovras from the apocryphal tale of the Old Testament. Kitovras in this tale had an important psychological reality,

00:49:30.790 - 00:49:49.900

he could move only in a straight line and he could only go forwards. In that, Kitovras is very similar to Khlebnikov actually, who was personally a poet who was uncompromising in every- in everything he did. As so, the discourses of Kitovras

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and Khlebnikov in Victorov's book coalesce, symbolizing, I think, the lonely and uncompromising way of a genuine poet. Khlebnikov's poetry is very important for understanding the development of Victorov's poetic style, but the affinity

00:50:09.790 - 00:50:29.230

of his poetry with the poetry of Khlebnikov lies not in his sphere of technical devices like neologisms, transformational language, primitivism, Khlebnikov's techniques, but in a similar attitude to folklore, nature, history and life.

00:50:31.400 - 00:52:04.880

Here are three short poems of Boris Victorov. I brought this book of his, "Chelokon." Let's start with: Dedication to Velimir Khlebnikov [Reads poem in Russian]

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Kirsten Rutsala: So this is the second dedication to Velimir Khlebnikov. Try and you won't say the thousandth part. The field is silent and barbarously inarticulate are the January blizzards of the native land. The drone of responsive pine

00:52:25.120 - 00:52:44.050

trees, the snow drifts babble. Standing still the plains slopes, hills and mountain ashes keep silent. Kitovras coming toward us will never have his say, mumbles something in his wanderings and wants terribly to be understood. Someone should

00:52:44.050 - 00:53:00.700

surely break through time and night and space, through obstacles, ditches and covering forces and name of the sky and the mounted and the unmounted and various animals and clear-eyed women and the market in noisy Suzdal, and the city

00:53:00.700 - 00:53:18.940

and the foolish maidens. Silence is worse than slavery. Lips turned white from pain. The bird returns to its nest above the temple, now called a club,. Stern faces of prophets brighten striving toward people, nations believe them; distances,

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outskirts, heights hear them, and the Asiatic night breathes in the face of the watchful linx. Morton Marcus: Let me just ask one more question. And then we get on to another poem his. It seems to me that you've answered

00:53:33.250 - 00:53:52.660

this question already. But we in the American world, the English speaking world, we think that Russia really is- is a- bases all of its literary arts really on prose, the Dostoevskys, the Tolstoys, the Chekovs, but does it, or is it really more

00:53:52.660 - 00:54:15.910

concerned with poetry than, than with prose? Yevgeny Slivkin: Today, today contemporary Russian prose in my personal opinion is more interesting than contemporary Russian poetry. But in the 19th century is a golden period of

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Russian literature. Because poetry reigned supreme, until the very end of the 19th century. Morton Marcus: So we know that Pushkin was one, we know Lermontov was another, who are the other great poets, some that

00:54:34.650 - 00:54:44.630

you can both think them. Kirsten Rutsala: Well, Blok certainly, Aleksandr Blok, [unidentified] in the 20th century. Mandelstam, [unidentified]

00:54:46.130 - 00:55:03.840

Morton Marcus: Mandelstam wrote in even those last poems of his when he was in the prison camp, see, he was writing in closed verse? Yevgeny Slivkin: I believe the last poems of his known to us

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from his "Voronezhskiye tetradi " - "Voronezh Notebooks" when he was in exile in the city of Voronezh. But it's interesting that his poetics, his poetics started associated, closely associated with Khlebnikov's poetics. He was very interested

00:55:31.860 - 00:55:44.160

in Khlebnikov, their relations were rather stormy. Morton Marcus: Such as in his wife's books, the first volume of the books on him, which everyone should read. Yeah. And what's- what's the name of the book again by Mandelstam's wife?

00:55:44.160 - 00:55:55.050

Kirsten Rutsala: "Hope Against Hope" is what it's called in English. The second volume is, "Hope Abandoned." Morton Marcus: Right. "Hope Against Hope," "Hope Abandoned," they really are books you should read out there to read more

00:55:55.050 - 00:56:08.910

about these people. I'm afraid we have just about run out of time, but this has been very instructive and very enjoyable. I'm really sorry we've never had you on earlier than this because you're going to be leaving us at the end of July, and you're

00:56:08.910 - 00:56:24.660

going to Oklahoma. [Cross talk] But it's been great that you both been here. It's been great getting to know you. We've been talking with Yevgeny Slivkin, the Russian poet, and Kirsten Rutsala, his wife, but more importantly, though not more

00:56:24.660 - 00:57:22.540

important, the Russian scholar who has got a brand new job waiting for her in Oklahoma. Congratulations. This is the Poetry Show. Stay tuned for "From the Bookshelf." Unknown: [Russian choral music]