Word: poem
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YEVGENY YEVTUSHENKO, BABII YAR AND OTHER POEMS (Caedmon). Russia's most prominent licensed nonconformist renders his role as rebellious poet in wax, and the impression is not flattering. A listener with no knowledge of Russian can have only an approximate sense of the quality of the original language in Yevtushenko's reading. The contents of the verses, however, can be judged in Alan Bates's English translation, and they do not seem to burn with artistic flame-they itch like inflammations. Except for the famous piece Babii Yar, which is more an emphatic speech than a poem...
...tells of a madwoman searching for her son, and her encounter with a boatman who explains his tragic death and shows her where he is buried. Scored for five male soloists, a chorus of nine and an orchestra of seven, Curlew River is a fragile work indeed, more tone poem than opera. Yet in a sedate, masquelike way, it has considerable melodic charm, and all its grace is underscored by the brilliant singing of Peter Pears and John Shirley-Quirk as the Madwoman and the Ferryman...
...classes, Mrs. Finley starts by having her students read a haiku together, clapping in unison with the syllables, and then individually describe the images the poem conveys. To set them off on their own haiku, she gives them the first two lines, asks them to supply a third. The responses often reflect the down-to-earth quality of children's imaginations. Once, for example, she gave her daughter the lines
...line is almost the exact opposite of this. The phrase 'lesser breeds' refers almost certainly to the Germans, and especially the pan-German writers, who are 'without the Law' in the sense of being lawless, not in the sense of being powerless. The whole poem is a denunciation of power politics...
...Foot on the Gas. Strong images refract strong emotions. Voznesensky is wildly excited by "godless/ baseball-crazy/ gasoline-hazy/ America!" A passionate patriot, he is also a ferocious critic of Communism. In a horrendous poem printed in 1963, he likens the relation between the Russians and their rulers to that between Peter the Great and one of his mistresses. Having cut off the poor wench's head, the czar snatched it up again by the hair and then, according to eyewitnesses, kissed the bloody carrion passionately on the lips. Unlike Evtushenko, however, Voznesensky is not primarily a political poet...