You know what is your fault Poetic Outlaw? You keep making me add more books to my overstuffed bookshelves. Pretty soon books of poetry are going to outnumber any other genre. Shame on you 😎.
Russia is a country of soul, the authorities try to stamp it out but it is impossible. The novelists, the composers, the ballet! Now I can add Sergei to the list.
Wonderful. I've just ordered the book " "The Last Poet in the Village" on the strength of this piece.
I am a fan of Russian literature generally but shamefully I had never heard of Sergei Yesenin.
A reminder that there is so much more to Russia than Putin, what's going on there and in Ukraine at the moment.
I've met a few Russians over the years and have always found them to be very friendly, down to earth people.
Russian literature is frowned upon in some circles currently principally because of Putin and the Russian invasion of Ukraine but, while understandable to some extent, I think this is veryunfair and unwarranted.
Similarly, Germany produced National Socialism and facilitated the rise of Hitler but in my opinion this in no way negates the many facets of high German art and culture that existed before and after.
Same with Russian art and culture.
In my humble opinion.
Thank you for showcasing Sergei Yesenin here and I'm really looking forward to reading more if his work.
Thank you. I was not familiar with him. Imagine how beautiful his poetry must be in Russian. Nabokov writes beautifully about the difficulty of translating from Russian.
I am so glad that Esenin is so popular. This is a second essay after mine which I placed in The Russian Poets Before and After Revolution. Esenin never was "poetic outlaw." He received the biggest pay for a line then the revolutionary Mayakovsky. His poems were and still are loved by people in Russia even more than our favorite Pushkin. I have the three volumes of his poems. Unfortunately he was drunkard, even his marriage to the L. Tolstoy's granddaughter couldn't save him...
After kindly introducing me to this fascinating poet and sharing the pleasure that is your thoughtful prose - it is with modest apprehension (and risk of being thought crass) that the quoted assertion is undermined by his choosing to end his own life? Though it does add poignancy and reason to reflect more closely on these and others of his words.
You know what is your fault Poetic Outlaw? You keep making me add more books to my overstuffed bookshelves. Pretty soon books of poetry are going to outnumber any other genre. Shame on you 😎.
I recently translated one of Esenin's poems to English, preserving rhyme and rhythm:
No regrets, no crying, and no swaying,
All expires like apple blossom, flung.
Overcome by gold-colored decaying,
I will never be forever young.
-
Slightly colder, you, my heart, have gotten,
You won't beat as strongly as you should.
And the land of speckled birchwood cotton
Will not make me wander barefoot.
-
Vagrant spirit! less and less you flicker,
Stirring up my mouth's scolding blaze.
Oh, where are you, my forsaken vigor,
Flood of feelings, rampancy of gaze.
-
I have gotten stingy with my yearnings,
Oh my life? were you a dream of mine?
Like I rode on resonant spring mornings
On a steed, the shade of rosy wine?
-
Every, everyone that lived has faded,
Maple leaves are pouring, copper, dry...
May you be forever consecrated,
All what came to blossom and to die.
1922.
Thank you!
I didn't know about Sergei Yesenin. Fascinating life. And after what you shared, I would like to read more. Thank you.
The Russian capacity for expressing suffering in the written word is without equal.
Vladamir Mayakovski wrote an elegy for Yesenin which ended with:
In this life
it's not difficult to die.
To make life
is more difficult by far.
What a whiner. 😑
Russia is a country of soul, the authorities try to stamp it out but it is impossible. The novelists, the composers, the ballet! Now I can add Sergei to the list.
Wonderful. I've just ordered the book " "The Last Poet in the Village" on the strength of this piece.
I am a fan of Russian literature generally but shamefully I had never heard of Sergei Yesenin.
A reminder that there is so much more to Russia than Putin, what's going on there and in Ukraine at the moment.
I've met a few Russians over the years and have always found them to be very friendly, down to earth people.
Russian literature is frowned upon in some circles currently principally because of Putin and the Russian invasion of Ukraine but, while understandable to some extent, I think this is veryunfair and unwarranted.
Similarly, Germany produced National Socialism and facilitated the rise of Hitler but in my opinion this in no way negates the many facets of high German art and culture that existed before and after.
Same with Russian art and culture.
In my humble opinion.
Thank you for showcasing Sergei Yesenin here and I'm really looking forward to reading more if his work.
Thank you. I was not familiar with him. Imagine how beautiful his poetry must be in Russian. Nabokov writes beautifully about the difficulty of translating from Russian.
I am so glad that Esenin is so popular. This is a second essay after mine which I placed in The Russian Poets Before and After Revolution. Esenin never was "poetic outlaw." He received the biggest pay for a line then the revolutionary Mayakovsky. His poems were and still are loved by people in Russia even more than our favorite Pushkin. I have the three volumes of his poems. Unfortunately he was drunkard, even his marriage to the L. Tolstoy's granddaughter couldn't save him...
Exactly, you are right! Read my essay Russian Poets Before and After Revolution.
Esenin. He was Genius and drunkard. I tell his story from his birth to his death.
After kindly introducing me to this fascinating poet and sharing the pleasure that is your thoughtful prose - it is with modest apprehension (and risk of being thought crass) that the quoted assertion is undermined by his choosing to end his own life? Though it does add poignancy and reason to reflect more closely on these and others of his words.
the best often die by their own hand
just to get away,
and those left behind
can never quite understand
why anybody
would ever want to
get away
from
them
-- Bukowski
Great post-but where the rhyme? The rhythm?
Half of it is lost, the music , the everything. In translation.
On the other hand...means I've my work cut out for me.
Wow. I love these.
I too, would like to read more. Always. Thank you for sharing.
Here's one more of his melancholic poems translated by me under the title
"Sing, sing on that cursed guitar"
Sing, sing, on that cursed guitar
Let your fingers dance and bend.
You would choke on smoke and tar,
My only one and the last friend.
Do not let your eyes stare at gold
Or the silk that shines immensely.
In that woman happiness I've sought
And have found my ruin accidentally.
I was not aware that a deep love
It's a disease, plague…an arrow!
It approached and with a closed eye
Blew the mind of an outlaw.
Sing, my friend, let time reverse
Bringing back our old dawn' s shine,
Let other men be fed with the caress
Of that old trash, a beautiful swine.
Please, stop, I don't want to touch her!
Please, stop, I'm not cursing.
Let me play about myself, dear
On that fat string that's glistening.
The cube of my days glows clearly,
There's still ancient gold in the soul
Many maidens I've kissed passionately
Many women I've squeezed in some hole.
There is a vivid truth on earth
I saw it even with the child’s eye,
Everyone licks a bitch on heat
All dogs running, ready to fly.
Should I be jealous of her?
As such face shame and all?
Our life is a bed and cover!
Our life is a kiss and fall!
Sing, sing, let hands wave farewell-
A fatal blow will cause a fatal end!
Listen, may all go to bloody hell,
I will never, never die, my friend!
Here is another of his beautiful, melancholic poems, I recently translated under the title -"Who Am I? What Am I?"
Who am I? What am I? I am just a dreamer
Whose gaze fades in a mist and haze
I have lived, at random, as if in a stupor
Like so many others on this earth.
I love you too out of habit, honey
As I have loved, romantic, other girls
That is why as if I were to light a smoke, casually
I utter and whisper the amorous words.
“Forever” and “sweetheart” and “I’ll call”,
While in my heart the same void resounds
Once the passion is stirred in the man’s soul,
Truth, with no doubt, will never be found.
Hence, my soul knows no the fright
Of rejected advances, a misread sadness
You are my birch-girl, agile and lithe
Made for both me and countless others.
But if, searching for a kindred spirit,
Bound against my will, I sink into blues
I shall never throw a jealousy's fit
Nor shall I scold you or hurl abuse
Who am I? What am I? I am just a dreamer
Whose gaze fades in a mist and haze
I have lived, at random, as if in a stupor
Like so many others on this earth.