Word: yevtushenko
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...need crowds, vast crowds, enormous crowds," explained Soviet Poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko as he made plans for his tour of the U.S. this month. He once read to an audience of 14,000 in a Moscow sports stadium; Doubleday, his American publisher, was happy to help re-create his experience in the U.S. and simultaneously promote his new book Stolen Apples. Advertising and producing his American appearances will cost nearly $100,000. So far the suave, sallow Siberian has performed for tens of thousands at the University of South Carolina, the Felt Forum in Madison Square Garden and arenas in Pittsburgh...
Although he has publicly denounced U.S. policy in Indochina, Yevtushenko has had no qualms about meeting its makers. After talking with him at a dinner party, Henry Kissinger arranged for Yevtushenko to see Richard Nixon. Last week poet and President conferred for 70 minutes at the White House; according to Press Secretary Ron Ziegler, Nixon informed Yevtushenko that poetry and music are "an international language...
Relieving Tedium. Few remain indifferent to Yevtushenko's personal language. His 6-ft. frame writhing, Yevtushenko shouts, wails and purrs in dramatic Russian. English translations are usually read by a British actor named Barry Boys, or by fellow poets. Between poems, Yevtushenko often banters with the audience in adequate English and with natural charm. The overall reaction is either passionate enthusiasm or cold rage. Says Poet Stanley Kunitz: "To reach out to so large an audience has an element of adventure. Extravaganzas relieve the tedium of an age." Poet Allen Ginsberg was inspired to dithyrambics: "He is trying...
...Felt Forum last week at the beginning of a U.S. tour. Eugene McCarthy read a poem against the war in Viet Nam. He was joined by more professional American poets, including James Dickey and Richard Wilbur. The Bijou Singers emitted a chorus of eerie wails, echoing such Yevtushenko lines as: "The stars in your flag, America, are bullet holes." The climax of the spectacle came, however, when Yevtushenko read Bombs for Balalaikas, composed overnight in protest against the bombing of Impresario Sol Hurok's office earlier in the week. Threats of a similar bombing of Yevtushenko's reading...
...bombing offered the Russians yet another opportunity to exaggerate U.S. responsibility for J.D.L. outrages; this was reflected in Yevtushenko's histrionics at the Felt Forum. In his poem, he described his visit to the wrecked office...