University of Virginia Library

Yevtushenko Presents Themes
Portraying Sadness, Anger

By NEILL ALFORD III

"I am like a train rushing for many
years now/ Between the City of Yes and
the City of No/ My nerves are strained
like wires/ Between the City of No and
the City of Yes," poet Yevgeny
Yevtushenko declared Monday night.

Presenting poetry that ranged from the
most personal of lyrics to the most
intense political declamations, the Soviet
poet, assisted by English actor Barry
Boys, voiced his feelings to a capacity
crowd in Cabell Hall auditorium.

The two used a technique of
presentation in which Mr. Boys first read
an English translation of each poem, and
Mr. Yevtushenko then delivered the lines
from heart in Russian.

Mr. Yevtushenko, who is perhaps the
best-known to Americans of
contemporary Soviet poets, said little
Monday night which might be
interpreted as "anti- American
propaganda."

Instead, he confined his political
poetry to expressions of sadness and
anger at conditions which both
Americans and Russians might lament.

His poem "Babi Yar", which drew an
enthusiastic greeting from the Cabell Hall
audience, proceeds from his sympathy
for the suffering of the Jewish people.

"There is no Jewish blood in mine",
he said in the poem. "But I am hated by
every anti-Semite as a Jew,/ And for this
reason,/ I am a true Russian."

After Mr. Boys read two poems in
English only, the audience heard Mr.
Yevtushenko express his own poetic
thoughts in "Sleep. My Beloved." His
voice, which could swell to a surge of
assurance and die down to a whisper of
intimacy, seemed to capture at every
instant the tenor of his feelings.

The poem entitled "Yes and No"
perhaps expressed Mr. Yevtushenko's
own sensation of conflict between a
society of permissiveness (the City of
Yes) and a society of forbiddance (the
City of No). Perhaps, he concluded, it is
best to be the train rushing between the
two cities.

Other poems which he and Mr. Boys
presented include/ "In a Steelworker's
Home". "Bombs for Balalaikas" and "In
a Cemetery of Whales".

"Oh, when/ will we understand each
other," Mr. Yevtushenko concluded, "as
vodka and whiskey—/ straight:—without
translation/ understood/ each other
perfectly."

Photo by Lovelace Cook

Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Between the Cities of Yes and No