09/28/2017
Have you ever heard from your women about the worldwide Slavic poet Sergey Esenin? October 3 is a special Esenin’s Day celebrated due to his birthday in 1895.
Since 1985 the Esenin poetry festival has been conducted in his homeland, Konstantinovo village, not far from Ryazan city.
How many critics talked about the riddle of Esenin's popularity, and, in fact, there was no riddle at all. The talent of openness, sincerity, charm, and nature was united in one person with an amazing gift to hear the music of the time, to feel the beauty of the world, to live, "worrying by the heart and verse." This happens, maybe once a century or even less.
He was born with the fate of the poet. The people sensitive to songwriting understood this from their very first acquaintance with his poems.
Esenin himself knew what a wonderful gift he wore inside, he knew what it was like to be a poet.
Esenin's song always found a lively response in people's souls, he was like a companion both in joy and in sorrow. Over the years, his poetry not only did not get old and did not fade, but it got younger, it opened the secret caches, acquired new colors, and new shades. Nowadays we are witnessing a nationwide love for Esenin, his world glory.
"Esenin is one of the greatest poets of the world, one of the most honest poets in the world," said the great Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet. "We must learn from his honesty, not hiding anything from the Motherland."
Here is one of the most popular poems of Sergey Esenin translated by P. Tempest:
Letter to a Woman
You remember,
Of course, you remember
How I stood
With my back to the wall
While you paced the room in a temper
And many a sharp word
Let fall.
You said:
It was high time we parted,
My mad life
Was torturing you
You’d work to do and had to start on it,
While I’d slide on down
To my doom.
Beloved!
You did not love me,
Didn’t you know: in the milling crowd
I was like a horse driven to fury
By spurs, and foaming at the mouth.
You didn’t know:
In the thick smoke,
In the turmoil of life swiftly spreading
What tortured me was I didn’t know
Where our ship of fate was heading….
Face to face
You can’t see the features.
You need distance to see what is great.
When the ocean surface is seething
The ship’s a pitiful state.
The earth is a ship!
But suddenly someone
Determined new horizons should be won,
Headed straight for the raging hurricane,
Streered the ship unswervingly on.
And was there a man among us on deck
Who did not stumble, start swearing and puke?
Few were the men of experience
Who stood their ground when all heaven shook.
Then did I too
In the terrible din,
Though knowing well what I was doing,
Go down into the hold of the ship
Not to witness the passengers spewing.
The ship’s hold was
A Russian tavern
And over a glass I bent low
So, by sight of woe not saddened,
I could go to the dogs
In a drunken glow.
Beloved!
I caused you heartache and pain.
Weary-eyed
On my antics you gazed,
Seeing me time and time and again
Wasting my talent on wild escapades.
But you didn’t know:
In the thick smoke,
In the turmoil of life that was spreading
What tortured me was
I didn’t know
Where our ship was heading….
In a different way I’m thinking, feeling.
When toasts are powered I rise and say:
“Praise be to the man who’s steering!”
Today by tender feelings impelled
Your grieving weariness I remembered
And now
I’m hastening to tell you
What I was then
And I am at present!
Beloved!
I’ve glad news of success:
I’ve not slipped down that slope so hazardous.
Now in the land of the Soviets
I am the keenest fellow-traveller.
I’m not the same chap
I was then.
You’ll have no cause, as before,
To cavil.
I’d gladly bear the freedom flag.
Of labour right to the English Channel.
Forgive me….
You too have changed, I know –
You have a husband
Who’s serious, clever;
You don’t need our old imbroglio
And you are better off
Without me altogether.
Live
As your own star has decreed,
To new destinations your way wending.
Greetings from one who shall ever esteem
Your memory,
S e r g e y E s e n i n
1924
