Quote:
Originally Posted by W T Clark
"Is it then so strange that the gorgeous pyrotechnics of Mandelstam's response in Russian should become, in contemporary English, a subdued, a dogged muttering?"
|
This question reminds me strongly of one of my grandmother's (unpublished) poems:
YEVGENY YEVTUSHENKO
(Born in 1933, Died in April 2017)
In nineteen-ninety-seven or so
at Stetson University
in Deland, Florida,
the great Russian poet
Yevgeny Yevtushenko
(author of “Baba Yar”)
read in his native tongue
“City of No, City of Yes.”
I felt pity for the translator.
“No” has such an open sound.
How could he express
the sneering nastiness
of Yevtushenko’s “Nyet”?
The cruel word snaps its fingers
underneath your nose.
“Nyet, nyet, nyet!”
No simpler grows the task.
Our sweet-tempered “yes”
nonetheless contains a hiss.
Yevgeny Yevtushenko
foresees the problem,
takes back the microphone.
“Da,” he says, consenting as a kiss.
“Da!” his audience murmurs
with international content.
[Tangerine Bell, undated draft]