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Famed Russian Poet Sergei Yesenin (Russian: Серге́й Алекса́ндрович Есе́нин; October 3 [O.S. September 21] 1895  – December 27, 1925) was born and died well before there was a name or treatment for the severe bipolar disorder from which he suffered. During his all-to-brief life, though he received the acclaim, reverence  and recognition the Russian people accord their poets, he was often extraordinarily troubled, his life marked by substance abuse, domestic squalor, and allegedly, suicide (some still dispute this in Russia, attributing his death to the KGB.)

The following poem is rather atypical of Yesenin, and with no disrespect, it is one we find reminiscent of American country music lyrics.    

 

Sergei Yesenin

 

The Back Streets of Moscow

 

The farmhouse is lonely without me,

And my old dog is gone from the door;

God sent me to die in the back streets

And I can’t go home any more.

 

I’m in love with this overdone city,

Though it’s dirty and falling apart;

It reminds me of stories at bedtime,

And the street sounds hurt my heart.

 

I go out for a fix after midnight,

And the fix that I’m after is fame,

So I head for a bar in the back streets

Where everyone knows my name.

 

It’s noisy and dirty and drunken,

But nobody there drinks alone –

The bartenders buy me my vodka,

And the hookers cry at my poems.

 

My heart beats faster and faster,

And I say to the drunk by the door—

“I’m like you, my life’s a disaster,

And I can’t go home anymore.”

 

Oh, the farmhouse is lonely without me,

And my old dog is gone from the door;

God sent me to die in the back streets

And I can’t go home anymore.

 

--Sergei Esenin

Translated from the Russian by Paul Schmidt.

Published in The New Yorker, December 4, 2006

 

 

Robert Frost needs no introduction

 

Range Finding

 

 

The battle rent a cobweb diamond-strung

And cut a flower beside a ground bird's nest.

Before it stained a single human breast.

The stricken flower bent double and so hung.

And still the bird visited her young.

A butterfly its fall had dispossessed

A moment sought in air his flower of rest.

Then lightly stooped to it and fluttering clung.

On the bare upland pasture there had spread

O'ernight 'twixt meullein stalk a wheel of thread

And straining cables wet with silver dew.

A sudden passing bullet shook it dry.

The indwelling spider ran to greet the fly,

But finding nothing, sullenly withdrew.

 

-- Robert Frost

 

Incident

by Countee Cullen, a preeminent poet  of the Harlem Rennaisance

 

Once riding in old Baltimore,

            Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,

I saw a Baltimorean

            Keep looking straight at me.

 

Now I was eight and very small,

            And he was no whit bigger

And so I smiled, but he poked out,

            His tongue and called me “Nigger.”

 

I saw the whole of Baltimore

            From May until December;

Of all the things that happened there

            That’s all that I remember.

 

§

 

Anne Sexton (1928-1974)

 

Her Kind

I have gone out, a possessed witch,

Haunting the black air, braver at night;

Dreaming evil, I have done my hitch

Over the plain houses, light by light:

Lonely thing, twelve fingered, out of mind.

A woman like that is not a woman, quite.

I have been her kind.

 

I have found the warm caves in the woods,

Filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,

Closets, silk, innumerable goods;

Fixed the supper for the worms and the elves:

Whining, rearranging the disaligned.

A woman like that is misunderstood.

I have been her kind.

 

I have ridden in your cart, driver,

Waved my nude arms at the villages going by,

Learning the last bright routes, survivor

Where you flames still bite my thigh

And my ribs crack where your wheels wind.

A woman like that is not ashamed to die.

I have been her kind.

  

§

 

Geoffrey Chaucer

Eds. Note – I studied Chaucer (ca. 1342—1400) in a graduate course at Harvard University. At first intimidated and grade-scared by his Middle English, I soon realized if I read it aloud, slowly, this voice from 600 years ago was not only comprehensible, but often more intensely honest than many contemporary ones, and served to affirm our common  humanity. In addition, the language, even without glossing, was generally rich, lovely and comprehensible as it addressed all matters of the human heart. With the following example, (it sets the New Orleans blues classic, “St. James Infirmary” echoing.) Try the reading aloud technique. You may like what you hear. jrg

 

I have of sorwe so grete woon (“I have of sorrow so great {a} wound”)

 

I have of sorwe so grete woon

That joye I get I never noon

Now that I see my lady bright

Which I have loved with al my might

Is from me deed and is a-goon.

 

Alas, Deeth, what ayleth thee

That thou toke my lady sweet

That was so fayr, so fresh, so fre,

So good that men may wel se

Of al goodnease she had no mete.

 

 

 

 

The Chickasaw Plum  -  Volume VI - Number 1 - January 2009

 

 

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