spanning his entire career, shows Yevtushenko
both as a poet and as a politician. Indeed, as
anyone who has followed his career can note,
with Yevtushenko, poetry and politics are
never far apart.
The book opens with an introduction by
Albert C. Todd which demonstrates exactly
how true this statement is. Although this intro-
duction is not an orderly examination of Yev-
tushenko’s life and career, it does highlight the
points which are significant and defining for his
career as a poet and as a politician. In addition, it
discusses several poems which are clearly politi-
cal and gives the history behind them and their
publication. Just as important for this collection
as a whole, however, the introduction also
presents Yevtushenko’s personal philosophy, a
love for nature, life, and the living which was
instilled in him by his grandmother while grow-
ing up in Zima Junction, not far from Lake
Baikal.
The poems in this collection, which were
translated by a number of well-known writers
and poets including James Dickey, Ted Hughes,
John Updike, and Richard Wilbur, are organ-
ized chronologically and divided into nine sec-
tions. Each section contains poems written in a
specific period, ranging in length from two to six
years, and is introduced by a line from one of the
poems in that section. Often this epigraph signi-
fies the overriding theme of the section. Of the
nine sections into which this collection is div-
ided, four are closely tied thematically to their
epigraph. The first section which includes poems
written between 1952 and 1955 is introduced by
the line ‘‘People are really talking now’’ (1). It
includes several poems which indicate the air of
freedom which began to be felt after Stalin’s
death. The second, consisting of poems written
between 1956 and 1962 and including poems
such as ‘‘Babi Yar’’ and ‘‘The Heirs of Stalin,’’
is aptly introduced by the lines ‘‘that time so
strange when simple/honesty looked like cour-
age’’ (59). The sixth section of poems are those
which were written between 1973 and 1975. It is
introduced by the lines ‘‘A poet is always in
danger/when he lives too safely’’ (367) and nota-
bly contains a number of poems less politically
controversial than several others in this collec-
tion. The ninth and final section, introduced
with the exclamation ‘‘We can’t go on this
way!’’ (595), includes ‘‘Requiem forChallenger,’’
‘‘We Can’t Go On,’’ ‘‘Half Measures,’’ and other
poems penned between 1986 and 1990, all of
which plaintively wonder where the world is
heading and where its future lies.
Although the remaining five sections do not
tie in closely with their respective epigraphs, they
are, nevertheless, no less significant. The third
section, introduced by the lines ‘‘The sea was
what I breathed/it was sorrow I exhaled...’’
(117), includes poems such as ‘‘Nefertiti,’’
‘‘Wounded Bird,’’ and ‘‘The City of Yes and the
City of No,’’ written in 1963 and 1964. The
fourth section includes very solemn poems writ-
ten between 1965 and 1967 such as ‘‘Yelabuga
Nail,’’ ‘‘Monologue of a Blue Fox,’’ and ‘‘Ceme-
tery of Whales.’’ It is introduced by a statement
of Yevtushenko’s views on the power of poetry
on the self: ‘‘It acts kind of crazy, flutteringly,/
when it chooses us’’ (177). The fifth section,
comprised of poems written between 1968 and
1972 and introduced by the lines ‘‘...I’ll come
seeping through/these rainy bits of slipperiness/
between the toes of barefoot urchins’’ (273), is a
selection of rather somber poems which con-
cludes with the very upbeat ‘‘I Would Like.’’
The seventh section, introduced by the lines
‘‘Hunger has the speed of sound,/when begin-
ning as a moan, it becomes a scream’’ (437),
contains another selection of very somber
poems written between 1976 and 1978. The
eighth section, introduced by the lines ‘‘A half
blade of grass in the teeth—/there’s my whole
secret’’ (519) and containing poetry written
between 1979 and 1985, is comprised of several
of the most openly politically controversial
poems written by Yevtushenko since the late
1950s and the early 1960s.
Throughout the collection, significant events,
individuals,places,andculturalmotifsareexplainedTHE SECOND [SECTION], CONSISTING OF POEMSWRITTEN BETWEEN 1956 AND 1962 AND INCLUDING
POEMS SUCH AS ‘BABI YAR’ AND ‘THE HEIRS OF STALIN,’
IS APTLY INTRODUCED BY THE LINES ‘THAT TIME SO
STRANGE WHEN SIMPLE / HONESTY LOOKED LIKE
COURAGE.’...’’
Babii Yar