Whack-a-Poet

I love Russian poetry. I spent my formative years in Odessa, Ukraine but I really started learning the language by reading Russian poetry. 

It's tough going - like poems in any language the vocabulary is a lot richer than every day speech, there are archaisms and neologisms that can throw you off the scent. There's also an entire heritage and canon that you're coming into nearly blind: Russian novels are pretty well-known in the West, but aside from a few heavy hitters like Akhmatova and Pushkin it's a real no-man's-land.

Not to mention that poetry is a game and if you're not a native speaker you will probably never grasp all the nuances of the rules. I feel about Russian verse sort of like how I feel about football: I know enough to have a vague sense of what's going on, I can follow some of the plays. But unlike my feelings for football there's a mystery and gravitational pull it exerts to keep me coming back for more.

The poem I read more than any other is by Yevgeny Yevtushenko, one of the so-called "Class of the Sixties." These were poets taking advantage of a brief break in the cloud cover of oppression, when the government somewhat eased limitations on speech and acknowledged the terror of the Stalin years. It's like a literary version of "Whack-a-Mole," where you pop your head up just enough, see if there's a guy with a big club waiting to hit you on the head, and then duck back down.

Yevtushenko wasn't the best of these poets. But he's my favorite, despite being kind of a self-serving prick. For example, in David Remnick's "Lenin's Tomb" (a fantastic piece of reporting on the end of the Soviet Union) he makes a cameo appearance trying to butter up Western journalists and get himself some lecturing gigs. It doesn't really make a difference to me.

This poem really shakes me up anytime I read it. I tried to find a recording of it online to give some of the flavor of the original for comparison, but all I found was some pantywaist estrada pop star singing the words as lyrics over a schmaltzy orchestra. (We'll talk about estrada and my disdain for it another time.)

I gave up on finding a recording and looked for the best translation I could find. But guess what? Translations of this poem range from the mostly acceptable to the truly terrible, none of which really gave a great taste of the original. So I decided it would be a good exercise to translate it myself, hopefully making as few sins of omission or commission as I can.

Yevgeny Yevtushenko (Translated by Matt Quarterman)

Beloved, Sleep

Salt spray glistens on the fence.
The gate is already locked.
And the sea,
smoking, and rising, and breaking the dams,
sucks the salty sun into itself.
Beloved, sleep…
Don’t torture my soul.
The mountains and steppes are already drowsing,
And our limping dog,
shaggy and thick,
lies down and licks the salty chain.
And the sea - hooves clattering,
and branches - chattering,
And with all our experience -
a dog on a leash,
and I tell you - in whispers,
then - in half-whispers,
later - now silent:
“Beloved, sleep…”
Beloved, sleep…
Forget that we’re fighting.
Imagine:
we’re waking.
And everything’s new.
We lie in hay.
We’re sleepy.
And the curds exhale.
From somewhere below,
from the cellar,-
in our sleep.
O, how can I make you
imagine all this,
you, the unbeliever?
Beloved, sleep…
Smile in your sleep
(leave all your tears!),
gather flowers
and guess where to put them,
and buy yourself so many beautiful dresses.
Mumbling?
It seems you’re tired of tumbling?
In your sleep turn around
and wrap yourself with dreams.
In sleep you can do
anything you want to,
but everything is
mumbling,
when we don’t sleep.
Not sleeping is reckless,
perhaps even forbidden,-
for all
that is secret
cries out in the deep.
It’s hard on your eyes.
They’re over-populated.
Your eyes find it easier under their lids.
Beloved, sleep…
Why are you sleepless?
The howling sea?
Talk of the trees?
Evil omens?
Someone’s bad conscience?
Or maybe, not someone’s,
but only my own?
Beloved, sleep…
You won’t write down anything,
but know,
that I am blameless in all of this guilt.
Forgive me - do you hear me? -
Love me - do you hear me? -
at least in our sleep,
at least in our sleep!
Beloved, sleep…
On the globe of the world
we’re fiercely flying,
threatening to explode,-
we have to hold each other,
so we don’t fall below,
and if we do fall -
we will both fall together.
Beloved, sleep…
Don’t gather up insults.
Let little dreams settle silently in your eyes,
In this world it’s so hard to get to sleep,
but still -
do you hear, beloved? -
sleep…
And the sea - hooves clattering,
and branches - chattering,
And with all our experience -
a dog on a leash,
and I tell you - in whispers,
then - in half-whispers,
later - now silent:
“Beloved, sleep…”