[Glenn Wright]

Hi Carl—

As always you do an excellent job of preserving the meter and rhyme scheme, as well as the faintly eerie ambiance of this poem.

Are all of Zenkevich’s poems untitled? I had some difficulty deciding whether the characters in the poem are alive (the old women enjoying the баня and the kids splashing by the river) or dead (their bodies in the churchyard while the church bell tolls). I also had trouble visualizing the line, Все полощатся в плеса. Are the kids in the water splashing water onto the shore? Where are the reeds? In the water or on the shore? I’m not familiar with the word плес, but I thought it might be related to пляж. I also don’t know what to make of the “red breath.” How did Mandelstam use it? Was one poet deliberately giving homage to the other? Could it refer to the Pentecostal fires from heaven that will announce the Second Coming? I thought maybe I was picking up some references to Baptism and Purgatory. Was Zenkevich Christian? He seems to have been one of the few poets who remained on good terms with the Soviet authorities.

I love the drawing of the Acmeists. They all look so серьезные.

Thanks for introducing me to this fascinating poem.

Glenn