Arseniy Tarkovsky’s poetry was always an enigma to me, much like Andrey Tarkovsky’s films. Young student in a Soviet university I was struggling to define and explain the meaning of every line. In fact, I only needed to stop overthinking it and just let it go, let it fill you with images sparkling in your head, and a warm feeling of love and belonging. I would escape into those images from the stresses of life in the 1980s.
Thank you for this post, such a welcome and necessary distraction from the everyday.
The romance and ethereal themes in his poetry seem very Silver Age, even the rhythm, although he wrote outside the period.
The last and mid stanzas feel Gumilev-like in their exotic, hopeful dreaminess and then the dagger in the last two lines. Hauntingly beautiful and devastating.
Thank you in return. I am very glad that the poem struck a chord. I think you are absolutely right - he straddled the ages, and was a rare man to be able to do so without total compromise. I used to have a book of his poetry but somewhere along the way of life I have mislaid it. And now it is much harder to visit a bookshop in Russia, of course.
I don't know Gumilev's work. I was so busy reporting Russia that I devoted very little time to reading the classics. Also, my Russian was self-taught and based on 90s slang and my time in Chechnya. Literature was beyond me. But I recently came across a slim volume of Akhmatova that I bought in the late 80s for a few kopecks, and I realise I can understand it quite well now.
When I fancied myself as a poet, I also translated some Mandelshtam. I might post one piece which I love very much. He was very hard for me to grasp. His wife's memoir ought to be better know in the West. We could learn a great deal from it.
It’s incredible that you can understand Akhmatova, I think poetry is the most intricate thing to understand in another language!
Gumilev is very recognizable with his flow of exotic (he travelled to Africa many times) animals, landscapes (often imaginary), like a philosophical Henri Rousseau painting but in verse.
Mandelshtam was the first poet that I loved, as a child. Have you seen this documentary/biopic about him? https://www.kinopoisk.ru/film/842545/ I saw it when it came out and found it very moving. I think they did a good job of conveying his life and art.
I love how visually beautiful his poetry is, but not exalted and frilly, for example
«Невыразимая печаль
Открыла два огромных глаза, —
Цветочная проснулась ваза
И выплеснула свой хрусталь.»
Also admire how Mandelshtam is broader than many poets and focused on societal/political issues in a sharp way others did not, not looking only inward, but dissecting the times he lived in very truthfully.
I think poetry is hard to understand in any language when you aren't ready for it. Even if I had possessed Google-like language skills, I wouldn't have understood the meaning any better than a bot understands meaning. I was too young.
You have encouraged me to go back to Mandelshtam and see what I am ready for now, too. His work against Stalinism seems more relevant than ever. That's why I mentioned Nadezhda's book earlier.
Thank you for the film link. And also for the Ryzhiy introduction - I will have a look this weekend. I don't think I had heard of him. In the 90s, I was just running around doing news (which there was plenty of, as you doubtless remember!)
Arseniy Tarkovsky’s poetry was always an enigma to me, much like Andrey Tarkovsky’s films. Young student in a Soviet university I was struggling to define and explain the meaning of every line. In fact, I only needed to stop overthinking it and just let it go, let it fill you with images sparkling in your head, and a warm feeling of love and belonging. I would escape into those images from the stresses of life in the 1980s.
Thank you for this post, such a welcome and necessary distraction from the everyday.
The romance and ethereal themes in his poetry seem very Silver Age, even the rhythm, although he wrote outside the period.
The last and mid stanzas feel Gumilev-like in their exotic, hopeful dreaminess and then the dagger in the last two lines. Hauntingly beautiful and devastating.
Here is another Tarkovsky poem, from the same film:
С утра я тебя дожидался вчера
From morning I waited for you yesterday;
their guesses were right, that you wouldn't come.
Remember what wonderful weather we had?
Like a holiday! And I left without needing a coat.
Today came along, and arranged for us both
a kind of especially overcast day,
and rain, and now such a late, late hour,
and the drops running off the cold branches.
No word can soothe, nor handkerchief wipe away.
Thank you in return. I am very glad that the poem struck a chord. I think you are absolutely right - he straddled the ages, and was a rare man to be able to do so without total compromise. I used to have a book of his poetry but somewhere along the way of life I have mislaid it. And now it is much harder to visit a bookshop in Russia, of course.
I don't know Gumilev's work. I was so busy reporting Russia that I devoted very little time to reading the classics. Also, my Russian was self-taught and based on 90s slang and my time in Chechnya. Literature was beyond me. But I recently came across a slim volume of Akhmatova that I bought in the late 80s for a few kopecks, and I realise I can understand it quite well now.
When I fancied myself as a poet, I also translated some Mandelshtam. I might post one piece which I love very much. He was very hard for me to grasp. His wife's memoir ought to be better know in the West. We could learn a great deal from it.
Ещё раз спасибо и всего самого прекрасного!
It’s incredible that you can understand Akhmatova, I think poetry is the most intricate thing to understand in another language!
Gumilev is very recognizable with his flow of exotic (he travelled to Africa many times) animals, landscapes (often imaginary), like a philosophical Henri Rousseau painting but in verse.
Mandelshtam was the first poet that I loved, as a child. Have you seen this documentary/biopic about him? https://www.kinopoisk.ru/film/842545/ I saw it when it came out and found it very moving. I think they did a good job of conveying his life and art.
I love how visually beautiful his poetry is, but not exalted and frilly, for example
«Невыразимая печаль
Открыла два огромных глаза, —
Цветочная проснулась ваза
И выплеснула свой хрусталь.»
Also admire how Mandelshtam is broader than many poets and focused on societal/political issues in a sharp way others did not, not looking only inward, but dissecting the times he lived in very truthfully.
Are you familiar with Boris Ryzhiy? He was an interesting 1990s poet https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A0%D1%8B%D0%B6%D0%B8%D0%B9,_%D0%91%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%81_%D0%91%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%81%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%87 Masterskaya Fomenko the theater had a play on him that was said to be phenomenal but unfortunately it was perpetually sold out so I haven’t seen it.
In the end, I spent a couple of hours on a post about Mandelstam. I hope you like it. Thank you for prompting it.
I think poetry is hard to understand in any language when you aren't ready for it. Even if I had possessed Google-like language skills, I wouldn't have understood the meaning any better than a bot understands meaning. I was too young.
You have encouraged me to go back to Mandelshtam and see what I am ready for now, too. His work against Stalinism seems more relevant than ever. That's why I mentioned Nadezhda's book earlier.
Thank you for the film link. And also for the Ryzhiy introduction - I will have a look this weekend. I don't think I had heard of him. In the 90s, I was just running around doing news (which there was plenty of, as you doubtless remember!)
Thank you again. Priyatnix vyxodnix
Beautiful, Chris - then those last two lines! Nov 5 round the corner.
That's very kind. I feel that posts like this one are 'minority interest' but I am very fond of the minority in question, and hope to reach them!