Esenin Translation Project

Here's that promised (or threatened) topic for the project of translating poems by Russian poet Sergei Esenin into English - and other languages? - that started from a discussion in my reading thread.

I will start posting relevant material here in the weekend, but I'd like this to be an "open source" kind of project - all are welcome to contribute and collaborate! So, if you want to get started right away, go to it.

Regards
Tim

For a little comic relief, or perhaps encouragement, here are Nabokov's words regarding his own translation:

"In an era of inept and ignorant imitations, whose piped-in background music has hypnotized innocent readers into fearing literality's salutary jolt, some reviewers were upset by the humble fidelity of my version. . . ." Such was Vladimir Nabokov's response to the storm of controversy aroused by the first edition of his literal translation of Eugene Onegin.

So if we aim for "humble fidelity" and "literality" , we will be doing well by Nabokov's standards. LOL

Andrew, if ever I try to do something using the Italian translation, you can be sure it will be humble and literal!!

Do you suppose Esenin is in Polish or German? We might be able to coax rachbxl1 and citizenkelly to play along (like our dear aluvalibri, they are both translators by trade).

Lois, thank you for putting me in the same category as rachbxl1 and citizenkelly, which is quite flattering, I must say!
Unlike them, though, I am a tad rusty.

I have an idea! Let's get several of our resident polyglots together. So for example, Polyglot A might translate from Russian to English. Polyglot B might translate from English to Italian. Polyglot C might translate from Italian to Czech. Polyglot D might translate from Czech to Chinese. And Polyglot E might translate from Chinese back to Russian. We could then see what had happened to the poem by the time it had been through multiple translations. How recognizable would it be? Oh and each of the resident polyglots would have to promise only to review the version from which she or he was translating.

Hilarious, again, Mary.

In all seriousness, though, I think that the final version does have to be that of the poet (Tim) who also has recourse to the Russian original.

I know that there are many translations out there which are done by two people, one of whom is the fluent speaker of the language, and the other is the poet in the language into which it is being translated and together they work on something which is reasonably faithful to the original but also poetry in the second language.

My translation from the Czech and the Slovak into English could, theoretically, be reasonably poetic, but I have no pretension of being able to compare it to the Russian original. I am translating a translation, and depending on how literal or poetic the translator into Czech or Slovak was, it may or may not be faithful to the Russian. Mary is absolutely right of course in suggesting that the further away we get from the original, the less likely it is it will have anything to do with Esenin.

Damn it Andrushka,

There you go raining on my parade and my lovely little experiment :-) While I think that the first translation should be Tim's, I don't think that the final translation back needs to be Tim's if we can find another fluent Russian translator who promises not to read the poem in question beforehand. I understand that in translation, one has a completely new poem. What interests me is how much the work would have permutated by the time it was finally translated back to Russian. Is it possible that we might end up with a better poem (I doubt that, but still)?

as translations, how are Milosz/Nathan's translations from the Polish into English of Anna Swir's poems regarded? I'm very fond of talking to my body; Swir is certainly one of my top 10 favorite poets - and i figure if that's in translation it's likely better(?) in the original? But then you do have at least one world class poet also doing the translation so being linguistically challenged on all fronts i have no way of judging, really. Except that i like her poems as translated. I know i like Milosz' poetry as well.

Wow, this group has taken off already! One of the reasons I decided to move this group away from my thread is that it became obvious to me that there are group members who are better translators than I - and there may well be better poets as well. So I'd rather be the instigator of and a contributor to the project than its final arbiter.

I will post the Russian originals of at least the shorter poems as I get the time. The three longer poems I translated were Inoniia (sometimes translated as "Otherland", although I left the title untranslated), Sorokoust ("Forty Days' Mourning for the Dead") and Chernii Chelovek ("The Black Man") - the latter two have certainly been translated into English before.

One of the problems I have is that the Cyrillic font I used in 1995 appears to be no longer available, so the Cyrillic in my notes on the poems currently appears as gibberish. That can be remedied, but again takes time.

Incidentally, I'm not the first New Zealander to take an interest in translating Esenin - poet Charles Brasch and translator Peter Soskice produced a small volume of Esenin translations into English in 1970 - see
http://www.library.otago.ac.nz/exhibitions/charles_brasch/cabinet_11.html

More later!

If someone will translate into French, I'll try an English riff on the French riff.

>4 avaland: ooh, fascinating, I can't resist! There does seem to be a quite a lot of Jesienin (as they call him) available in Polish; if I can get hold of the right poems, I'm game.

In order to dampen down any high expectations caused by avaland's introduction of me as a translator, I'm compelled to say that I'm not; I'm an interpreter, so the idea of spending hours thinking about the right word is a foreign concept to me (deep breath, open mouth, hope for the best is more my kind of thing), but I'll do my best!

I discovered last night, looking at the first of the Jesenin books I received, that at least half are untitled. So as rachbxl says above, a problem I had not thought of is getting hold of the right poems.

Инония
(Inoniia - title)

Выткался на озере алый свет зари
(The scarlet light of dawn … - first line)

Сорокоуст
(Sorokoust/Forty Days' Mourning for the Dead/Prayers for the Dead – title)

A little experiment in #14 - I've posted the names of three of the poems I've translated in Russian, with an English translation or transliteration below. The Cyrillic characters I've posted look fine on my computer - do they look OK on yours?

If the Cyrillic is coming through OK, I'll post my full list of poem titles/first lines tomorrow.

Re the first lines issue - just to make things worse, Esenin has quite a lot of untitled poems with similar first lines!

YES

The Cyrillic is coming through OK.

Thanks, Tim.

(And of course work on your own poetry and putting bread on the table with other commitments comes first; please don't feel pushed to spend more time here than you can spare.)

Thanks again,

Andrew

The Cyrillic is fine.

Echoing comments 16 & 17 - Looks fine to me.

Tim, I am so excited you are doing this and that you've set up a thread for it!

Re 11, Mary's offer to translate from the French. I had hoped to find a translation from the Russian into French and discovered one, from a Belgian bookseller, who wants $137.47 for his copy. What do you say, Mary? LOL Didn't think so.

>19 polutropos: Darling Andrushka,

As I recall from another thread about luxurious fabrics, you're the one with the aristocratic pedigree and unlimited wealth. As for me, I'm descended from horse thieves who snuck onto the Mayflower and headed to . . . a place without many horses at the time.

My aristocratic pedigree and unlimited wealth are made of cobwebs and dew.

I must say, though, that I have spent most of the day with Esenin (in Czech), and I do not think that there is a poet who speaks to me more that I have come across in the last ten years, and perhaps ever. I will, for my own amusement, translate the poem which has rocked me today, then spend some time reworking it, and only then look at English translations, of which I am sure there are several.

I'm glad the Cyrillic has come through fine.

Andrew: (#16) I have a bad habit of getting carried away with a new project before I get to the end of my current project, which then trails away uncertainly. But I've almost finished my work on the poetry anthology I'm co-editing, so I'll allow the Esenin to take over from that once the manuscript is completed and sent off to the publisher. (FYI, it's an anthology of New Zealand science fiction poetry.)

As for the novel I'm half-way through writing, I have set times to work on that (the "work hours" when I'm not at my paid job), so the trick is to stick to them!

(#21) I am delighted that Esenin is speaking to you so powerfully.

Here are the titles or first lines of the fifteen Esenin poems I translated from Russian into English in 1995. While some were chosen as outstanding poems, others were chosen to illustrate a point in my paper, or provide representative coverage of Esenin's career, or because they are comparatively short!

Where I have the date of the poem to hand, I've included it; I can find out the composition dates of the rest if necessary.

Выткался на озере алый свет зари
(The scarlet light of dawn … - first line)

Шел госродь пытать людей в любови
(The Lord went out to test the people's love – first line)

Чую радуницу Божью
(I feel God's mourning for the dead – first line; 1914)

Устал я жить в родном краю
(I have grown tired of life in my native region – first line)

Разбуди меня завтра рано
(Wake me early tomorrow – first line)

Инония
(Inoniia – title. Dedicated to the Prophet Jeremiah)

Песни, песни, о чем вы кричите?
(Songs, songs, what do you cry about? – first line)

Зеленая прическа
(Green coiffure – first line)

Теперь любовь моя не та
(Now my love is not the same – first line. Dedicated to Kliuev; 1918)

Я последний поэт деревни
(I am the last poet of the village – first line)

Сорокоуст
(Sorokoust/Forty Days' Mourning for the Dead/Prayers for the Dead – title; 1920)

Все живое особой метой
(All living creatures are marked by a special sign – first line; 1922)

Мир таинственный, мир мой древний
(Mysterious world, my ancient world – first line; 1921)

Мы теперь уходим понемногу
(We are now departing little by little – first line)

Черный Человек
(The Black Man – title)

Just as a matter of general amusement, here are Google Translator's translation of some of the titles or first lines posted by Tim in #23. *indicates google translated lines

Выткался на озере алый свет зари
(The scarlet light of dawn … - first line)
*Vytkalsya on the lake red light of dawn

Шел госродь пытать людей в любови
(The Lord went out to test the people's love – first line)
*It was gosrod torturing people in love

Песни, песни, о чем вы кричите?
(Songs, songs, what do you cry about? – first line)
*The songs, songs about what you shout?

Мы теперь уходим понемногу
(We are now departing little by little – first line)
*We now go slowly

Все живое особой метой
(All living creatures are marked by a special sign – first line; 1922)
*All live special metoy

(I'm having serious doubts about some of their English words:-)

Теперь любовь моя не та
(Now my love is not the same – first line. Dedicated to Kliuev; 1918)
*Now my love is not the

Я последний поэт деревни
(I am the last poet of the village – first line)
*I am the last poet of the village

(Я думаю, что перевод не хорошо в большинстве случаев OR, I think the translation is NOT good in most cases:-)

ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dang! That removes the simple "shove all the poems into Google and let it translate" option.

Google did do pretty well on a couple of them, though.

I've been playing with the first lines in French. In French many of the first lines are gorgeous.

Following this thread with great interest. Keep going people. Can't contribute more than this, as I can't read or write in Chinese, but I am translating orally as we go.

#28, tomcatmurr: Kind friends in China have translated one of my poems into Chinese (and there may be more such translations in the offing), but I'm not sure how their Russian->Chinese skills stack up.

It took me so long to type in the titles in Cyrillic that entering the poems themselves will be a heroic effort! But I might have a crack at entering one of the shorter ones next weekend. Another option would be to scan some of the longer originals and put them up as PDFs.

Most of the poems I translated are taken from the one-volume collection Cергей Есенин, but (at least in Russian) there are a number of multi-volume collections of his work which, I guess, ought to be available in libraries of universities with Russian departments, at least ... I think there may be only one such university left in New Zealand now.

I think pdfs are suitable, if you can make it work.

I've found a website with a dozen or so Esenin poems in Polish, and a quick look has been enough to identify a couple of the poems from Tim's list, which means that there are probably more of them there that I've yet to recognise. (Can I just check something, Tim? I think I've found the one that starts "We are now departing little by little" - would the second line be something like "to a sweeter, more sheltered land"? (VERY rough translation!))
I have to say that I was initially attracted by this as a purely linguistic exercise, but wow! - I like these poems...

I must second Rachel's "wow! - I like these poems..." The more I read, the more I am impressed. Where have you been all my life, Sergei?

#31: Here's the translation I made of that poem (hmmm, the last line of Stanza 5 looks a little odd ...). Does this look like the same poem?

Looking back on this translation from thirteen years' distance, I can see pretty clearly where I can turn it into better English poetry, which is encouraging. I think I was still too close to the Russian when I made my original translations.

We are now departing little by little
For that land, where there is peace and plenty
It may be that I too will soon
Gather my transitory belongings for the road

Beloved birch thickets!
You, earth! And you, wide and sandy plains!
Before this throng of those departing
I have no strength to hide my pain

Too much have I loved in this world
All which clothes the soul in flesh.
Peace to the aspens which, spreading out their branches
Stare into the rose-coloured water

Many thoughts have I brooded on in silence
Many songs I’ve written only for myself
And for this it is fortunate
That on this gloomy earth I lived and breathed

It is fortunate that I have kissed women
Crumpled flowers, rolled round in the grass
And wild animals, like our younger brothers,
Never hit about the head

I know that thickets do not bloom there
That the rye does not rustle its swan necks
That is why, before the throng of those departing,
I feel a tremor I cannot repress

I know that in that land there will not be
These fields, shining golden in the mist…
That is why I hold dear too the people
Who live with me on earth.

#33 That's the one! Thanks for posting your translation - I'm going to save it until I've had a better look at the Polish, and then I'll come back to it.

Nineteen Ways of Looking at Wang Wei: How a Chinese Poem Is Translated. I wasn't sure where to put this - but seemed most relevent, if only for comparisons sake, here. 19 different translations of one brief, 1200 yr old classic Chinese poem, w/ commentary by editor Eliot Weinberger. Almost 70 yrs of translations. The majority into English, but two into French and Paz does what is agreed to be among the best into Spanish (which i don't read). The original calligraphy and pinyin transliterations are provided, as well as a character by character translation of the original. Gary Snyder describes some of the process of translation into English; Francois Cheng, likewise into French; and Paz devotes a generous 7 pages to both the general process of going from Chinese to another language and to his own choices in particular.

Beginning w/ Rexroth's 1970 translation, Weinberger usefully discusses the differences/intents of scholarly vs poetic translations (some of the ed. comments are snippy, however apropos) and pluncks down hard for the "poet's" eye and ear.

How fascinating! Thanks for the reference! I will look out for this book.

35 and 36: That does indeed sound fascinating - and it encouraged me to post the Chinese translation of a poem of mine, and then the original poem, in English, in my reading thread (#s 75 and 76). Unfortunately, I can't get the final character of the translation to render properly, but I'd be interested to know what any readers of Chinese think of the translation apart from that.

character by character

1.{empty} {Mountain(s)} {(negative)} {to see} {person/people}

2.but {to hear} { person/people} {words/conversation} {sound/to echo}

3.{to return} {bright(ness)/shadow(s)} {to enter} { deep} {forest}

4.{To return} {to shine/ to reflect } {green/blue/Black} {moss/ lichen} {above/on (top of)/top}



(Snyder -1978)
Empty mountains:
no one to be seen.
Yet-hear-
human sounds and echoes.
Returning sunlight
enters the dark woods;
again shining
on the green moss, above.
------
En la Ermita del Parque de los Venados (Paz -1974)

No se ve gente en est monte.
Solo se oyen , lejos, voces.
Por los ramajes la luz rompe.
Tendida entre la yerba brilla verde.

Goodness! I've been away for a while, and have only just stumbled across this business...
What a good idea, Tim!

I've read some Jessenin poems in my time, so I know they've definitely been translated into German. I'll try and locate a copy and, if I may, join in the fun!

ETA: I've just ordered this -

*settles down with a BIG bowl of buttered popcorn to watch*

Esenin is bursting out all over - perhaps one day these divers translations will attract a book like that about translations of Wang Wei; or perhaps not.

In any case, the next thing I want to do is post the Russian originals of the poems I listed above, but I haven't had time to scan them yet as the Poetry Anthology That Would Not Die continues to consume my spare time. So I too will be a spectator for the next few days as Eseninism (an early Soviet epithet for "hooliganism") spreads across the globe!

Hoping to remind everyone out there that this is still a living project.

Anyone interested in translation might be amused by a little exercise that three of us did last night on TomCatMurr's thread.

For me, it prompted me to return to this particular project, this weekend, I hope.

And thanks, Bob, for your recommendation of Nineteen Ways of Looking at Wang Wei. My copy has now arrived and it is next on my reading horizon, leaping over a crowd of 2,000 grumbling books, all screaming "but I was here first." :-)

It's certainly still alive as far as I'm concerned, even though I have shown few signs of life here lately - I had hoped to get the scanning of the Russian originals done this week, but ran out of time - that's definitely on next week's agenda. But thanks for the prompt, Andrew!

Ditto. I'm currently bogged down with translations for which I'm getting paid (no excuse, I know), but I now have my copy of German translations and hope to get some of them into English in the next couple of days.

ETA - at the moment it seems as if I only have the following poems (of those mentioned by Tim in #23) in my collection, so I'll start with those:

Выткался на озере алый свет зари
(The scarlet light of dawn … - first line)

Устал я жить в родном краю
(I have grown tired of life in my native region – first line)

Я последний поэт деревни
(I am the last poet of the village – first line)

ETA2: I'm happy to scan the Russian originals that I have...

These are the three I'll be working on (via the German translation) in the next couple of days. I hope to have something early next week. What fun!!!

Thanks so much for posting these, citizenkelly! I'll put up my original English translations of these after you've done yours from the German.

Regards
Tim

I'm eagerly looking forward to this.

I've now got the originals of all the poems I translated back in 1995 scanned - some need a bit of cleanup, but I should be able to start posting them this weekend (minus those citizenkelly has already posted, of course).

This is all very cool.

As promised (or perhaps threatened) back in January I have now translated the Czech version of Esenin's Black Man into English. I have not looked at the Russian original, nor other English versions of the poem. I did some polishing of the English, so it is not in totally rough draft format, but will probably want to polish it more. Right now I have it in longhand, but as soon as I have typed it into a wordprocessing program, which should be today, it will be here for the amusement of all.

Looking forward to it, polutropos! I'll post the Russian original (if I can wrestle the files into submission) and my Russian->English translation from 1995 subsequently.

Black Man

by S. Esenin (1925)
translated into Czech by J.Taufer (1964)
translated into English by A. Stancek (2009)

O friend of mine,
grave illness overcomes me!
Even I don’t know the source of the hurt.
It could be the wind howling
over desolate, bare fields
or perhaps it is that the brain,
like September’s bushes,
is sprinkled through and through by alcohol.

As a bird waving its wings,
my head waves its ears.
My legs, carrying my neck,
able to stumble no more.

A black man,
black, black,
a black man
sits next to me in bed,
a black man allows me no sleep all night.

A black man
stumbles through the pages of an ugly book
and droning over me
like a priest over a deceased,
reads to me about the life
of some wastrel and drunkard
herding into the soul sadness and dread.
A black man,
black, black.

“Listen, listen,”
he roars over my head.
Fruitful thoughts and plans
abound in the book.
This man
lived once in the land
of the vilest
murderers and charlatans.

In that land in December
the snow and air are devilishly clean.
Flurries whirl
merry-go-rounds in the orchards.
That man was an adventurer,
though of course,
of the highest rank.

He was charming,
and more than that, a poet,
his strength small but captivating,
and some woman,
a little over forty,
he called his bad girl,
and his lover.

Happiness, he used to say,
is all about quick wit and hands.
No happiness in this life
for a witless soul.
What of it,
that smooth gestures, lie-filled,
bring about
such suffering.

In shocks, in storms
downcast by the commonplace,
in heavy losses
and when sorrow overcomes you,
the greatest art in the world
is to appear hearty and happy.

“Black man!
What is it you dare to say?!
You clearly are no deep-sea diver.
What do I care about the life
of a poet hooligan?
To others go
and read these tales.”

The black man
stares into my face.
His eyes are overcast
with bluish vomit,
as if he wished to call me
a pickpocket,
shamelessly picking a pocket.

O friend of mine,
grave illness overcomes me.
Even I don’t know the source of the hurt.
It could be the wind howling
over desolate, bare fields
or perhaps it is that the brain,
like September’s bushes,
is sprinkled through and through by alcohol.

Chilly night.
Silence goes through the crossroads.
I am standing by the window.
I await no friend, no guest.
The whole plain is dusted
by a smooth, even plaster.
And the trees, like riders,
gathered in our garden.

The hooting of an ill-boding owl
is carried like weeping through the night.
The wooden riders resound with hoofbeats.
And once again that black one
seats himself in my armchair
carelessly tossing off his tophat
and cape.

“Listen, listen,”
he wheezes and leaning ever closer to me
stares into me mercilessly.
“Never yet have I seen
a villain
struggling so pointlessly
with sleeplessness.

Oh, but perhaps I am mistaken.
The moon spills over the countryside.
What else does the world,
sleep-drowsy,
want?
Perhaps “she” of the fat thighs
will come secretly
and you’ll read her
your boring, lifeless lyrics?

Oh, I love poets!
Pack of rogues.
I always find in them
the same amusing tale –
a long-haired monster,
overflowing with lecherous sluggishness,
regaling a pimply school-girl
with tales of stars.

Oh, I don’t know, I have forgotten,
in some village,
in Kaluga, perhaps by Ryazan,
many years ago
there lived in an ordinary peasant family
a blond boy,
a blue-eyed boy.

When he grew up,
he became a poet,
his strength small but captivating,
and some woman,
a little over forty,
he called his bad girl,
and his lover.

“Black man!
Quite a host you are.
Your fame is everlasting.”
Overcome with rage,
I reach for my cane,
and pound his maw,
the bridge of his nose.

...The moon died.
Dawn is bluing into the window.
Oh, night!
What is it, night, that possessed you?
I stand, tophat on.
No one here.
Only I...
And a broken mirror.

Good one, Andrew! Without further ado ...

The Black Man
by Sergei Esenin (1925)
translated into English by Tim Jones (1995)

My friend, my friend
I am so very sick!
I myself don’t know from where this pain took hold
Whether the wind whistles
Over the empty and unpeopled field
Or whether, like a grove in September
Alcohol overthrows my brains

My head flaps its ears
Like a bird flaps its wings
To it on its neck my feet
Loom up unbearably.
The black man,
The black, black
Black man
Sits down by me on the bed
The black man
Won’t let me sleep all night

The black man
Finds his place in a disgusting book
And, speaking nasally above me,
Like a monk above a corpse
Reads to me the life
Of some scoundrel and debauchee
Arousing in my soul anguish and fear.
The black man
Black, black!

“Listen, listen —”
He mutters to me
“In the book are many wonderful
Thoughts and plans
This man
Spent his life in the land
Of the most revolting
Thugs and charlatans

In December in that land
The snow is clean as the very devil
And blizzards start
Gay spinning-wheels.
That man was an opportunist
But of the highest
And best grade

He was graceful
Moreover a poet
Of small
But sure strength
And some woman
Forty-odd years old
He called ‘bad girl’
And ‘my darling’

It’s lucky — he said —
He had deftness of mind and hands
All clumsy souls
Are known to be unlucky
If tortuous
And lying gestures
Are the cause of much torment—
So what?

In thunder, in tempests,
In the world’s frost
In heavy losses
And when you are sad
To seem happy and simple —
That is the world’s highest art.

“Black man!
How dare you?
After all, you don’t eke out
Your living as a diver.
What to me is the life
Of a scandalous poet?
Please, find someone else
To tell your tale.”

The black man
Looks straight at me.
And his eyes are covered
By light blue vomit —
As if he wants to tell me
That I am a swindler and a thief
Having just
Pulled off a brazen theft

My friend, my friend
I am so very sick
I myself don’t know from where this pain took hold
Whether the wind whistles
Over the empty and unpeopled field
Or whether, like a grove in September,
Alcohol overthrows my brains

A frosty night
The crossroads are quiet and serene
I am alone at the window
Waiting neither for guest nor friend.
The whole of the plain is covered
By soft and shifting lime
And the trees, like horsemen,
Gather in their orchard.

Somewhere an ill-omened
Night bird cries.
The wooden riders
Sow the clatter of hooves.
Once more the black man
Sits down in my armchair,
Having raised his top hat
And cast his frock-coat aside.

“Listen, listen!”
He wheezes, looking me in the face,
Bending nearer and nearer
All the time —
“I didn’t see that one
Of the scoundrels
Suffered from sleeplessness.
More fool he!

Well, suppose I got it wrong.
Look, there shines the moon.
What then in your drunken world
Matters more than sleep?
Perhaps, with fat thighs,
‘She’ will come secretly,
And you will read
Your sickly, languorous lyrics

Ah, I love poets!
Such a diverting race.
In them always I find
A story, known by heart —
Like a long-haired degenerate
Who tells an acned woman student
All about villages
While oozing sexual languor.

I don’t know, I don’t remember,
In some village,
Perhaps, in Kaluga,
Or maybe, in Riazan,
Lived a boy
In a simple peasant family,
Yellow-haired,
With light-blue eyes …

And there he became an adult,
Moreover a poet,
Of small
But sure strength
And some woman
Forty-odd years old
He called ‘bad girl’
And ‘my darling’.”

“Black man!
You foul guest.
Your infamy
Has long been spreading.”
I am enraged, furious,
And my walking-stick flies
Straight at his face
At the bridge of his nose…

The moon has died,
The sky turns blue through the window.
Oh, night,
What ruin did you bring?
I stand in a top hat
No-one is with me
I am alone
And the mirror is broken…

My scans of the original - the text is quite small, but you can use Zoom or increase the screen resolution to see it more clearly:

Oh my. The 'Black Man' is great – much, much better than the poems I found, I fear. My collection doesn't feature anything of great length, many of the works seem more like sketches and are generally morbid.

Here are the three promised poems, translated from German into English. The German translation was done by Karl Decedius in in 1960s, although I also used a Paul Celan translation for the third poem. I scanned and posted the Russian originals a while ago here, in #45.

Устал я жить в родном краю (1915)

I am tired of living in my native place,
tides of buckwheat lure me,
I shall abandon domesticity
and head far away as a vagabond and thief.

I travel through hazy daylight
to beggarly shelters.
A dear friend whets his knife
against me, on a bootleg.

The meadow with the yellow path
embraces springtime and sunshine
and she, who my heart adores
drives me away from her threshold.

And so I return to Father's house,
surrounded by others' happiness,
I hang myself in the green night,
from the window cross, with my sleeve.

The meadows of the homestead turn grey,
heads are bowed.
I am buried without sacrament,
to the sound of yapping dogs.

Yet the moon will swim on,
rudderless, still shining,
and Russia will carry on at the village fence,
living, dancing, crying.

Я последний поэт деревни (1919)

I am the last poet of the village,
My song is just a bridge of boards.
The birch leaves sing their parting matins
and waft incense across my path.

With a golden flame the candle burns down,
made from the wax of my flesh,
and the wooden clock of the moon
will soon announce my twelfth hour, rasping.

Soon the iron guest will tread
The final path of the wide blue fields,
To reap with his black fist
the summer oats in the red glow of evening.

You dead, you alien hands,
In which this singing dies!
The ears of wheat alone will grieve,
like horses grieve their master.

The wind will catch their whinnying
When he dances the dance of death.
Soon, soon, the wooden clock
Will rasp my twelfth hour.

Выткался на озере алый свет зари (1910)

The dawn cast a purple hue across the lake.
The grouse lamented loudly in the fir forest.

The blackbird, hidden in its nest, lamented its distress.
Only I have nothing to lament – my soul glows.

I know you'll come this evening behind the fields,
we'll flee into a nearby haystack.

I kiss you, intoxicated, clasp you like a pressed blossom.
Who thinks of malicious tongues when fired by passion?

My kisses rouse you to discard your veil,
I, intoxicated till morning, carry you to your lair.

Let the grouse wail their lamentations.
The dawn brings to me a yearning, and I rejoice.

What a fantastic poem! Thanks to both of you for posting it!

Im going to spend some time studying both versions, but I have a question about the first stanza so far: here is P's version and here is Tim's version:

O friend of mine,
grave illness overcomes me!
Even I don’t know the source of the hurt.
It could be the wind howling
over desolate, bare fields
or perhaps it is that the brain,
like September’s bushes,
is sprinkled through and through by alcohol.

My friend, my friend
I am so very sick!
I myself don’t know from where this pain took hold
Whether the wind whistles
Over the empty and unpeopled field
Or whether, like a grove in September
Alcohol overthrows my brains

My question is this:

In P's version the narrator doesn't know one thing: the source of the hurt. He then goes on to provide two possible sources for the hurt. In Tim's version, the narrator doesn't know three things: the source of the hurt, whether the wind is blowing, or whether he is drunk. It's a subtle difference, but I'm intrigued as to what the Russian grammar is here.

Very interesting! I think I might print these out and look at them on paper, especially those translations of the same poem.

For those interested in translation, especially from the Russian:

Pevear and Volokhonsky work in a general two-stage process, where Volokhonsky prepares a literal translation of the Russian text, which Pevear then adapts into stylistically appropriate English. Pevear has variously described their working process as follows:

"Larissa goes over it, raising questions. And then we go over it again. I produce another version, which she reads against the original. We go over it one more time, and then we read it twice more in proof."5

"We work separately at first. Larissa produces a complete draft, following the original almost word by word, with many marginal comments and observations. From that, plus the original Russian, I make my own complete draft. Then we work closely together to arrive at a third draft, on which we make our 'final' revisions."6

These poems are gorgeous.

It's the weekend, so it must be time for Esenin!

#57: Looking back at the poem, I think my translation of that stanza is accurate, except that there should be a period after the word "hold". This perhaps tips it more towards Andrew's translation - but I'm not entirely sure. O lurking Russians, please advise!

I thought our two translations were reasonably close together, for the most part.

tomcatMurr, urania1: glad you're enjoying the poems!

#59: I have heard of other translations teams using the same approach - never tries it myself, though.

Now for my 1995 translations of the three poems translated by citizenkelly in #56. Citizenkelly, thank you for positing these - I enjoyed your translations!

I Have Grown Tired of Life in My Native Region

I have grown tired of life in my native region.
In longing for the buckwheat plains
As vagrant and as thief I will
Go out and leave my hut behind.

I will set out along the white curls of the day
To search for a squalid lodging
And for me my beloved friend
Will whet his knife on his boot-top.

Spring and sun on the meadow
Wind the yellow road around
And she, whose name I guard
Will banish me from the threshold.

Returning again to my father’s home
I will draw solace from another’s joy
As the window greens with dusk
I’ll knot my sleeve and hang from it.

Grey willows by the hurdle
Will bow their pale heads
And they will bury me unwashed
To the barking of a dog.

And on the moon will row and row
Dropping oars upon the lakes
And just the same will Rus’ live on
To dance and cry upon the shore.

I Am the Last Poet of the Village

I am the last poet of the village
The plank bridge is modest in my songs
I stand at the farewell mass
Of the incense-burning foliage of birches.

From corporeal wax a candle
Burns down with a golden flame
The wooden clock of the moon
Will wheeze my twelfth hour.

To the path of the sky-blue field
Soon the iron guest will come
And gather in his cupped black hands
The oatmeal grass spilled by the dawn.

Lifeless, alien palms
These songs don’t draw their life from you!
Only the grain-spiked horses’ ears
Will mourn the old master.

The wind will suck their neighing
Celebrating the funeral dance
Soon, soon the wooden clock
Will wheeze my twelfth hour.

The Scarlet Light of Dawn

The scarlet light of dawn weaves patterns on the lake
Through the forest rings the cry of grouse

And somewhere the oriole, hiding in a tree-trunk, cries.
I alone am not crying — in my soul all is bright

I know that, come evening, you will cross the ring of roads
We’ll sit in the fresh hay beneath the next-door rick

I will kiss you like a drunkard, crumple you like a flower
When you’re drunk from gladness there’s no chance to sober up

Beneath my caresses you’ll take off your bridal veil
And I’ll carry you drunken under the bushes till morning.

So let the cry of grouse ring through the forest
There is a cheerful sadness in the curtains of dawn.

I posted a list of all the Esenin poems for which I have originals & have done translations in #23. Are there any particular poems on this list, in addition to those already posted, which people are working on translating, or would like to work on translating?

If so, I can post the original and/or my translation - whichever would be helpful.

If not, then I will work through that list and post the poems that haven't yet been posted, and look forward to seeing any other translations people may like to contribute!

Есенин С. А. НОЧЬ

Тихо дремлет река.
Темный бор не шумит.
Соловей не поет
И дергач не кричит.

Ночь. Вокруг тишина.
Ручеек лишь журчит.
Своим блеском луна
Все вокруг серебрит.

Серебрится река.
Серебрится ручей.
Серебрится трава
Орошенных степей.

Ночь. Вокруг тишина.
В природе все спит.
Своим блеском луна
Все вокруг серебрит.

1911-1912

Translation of Sergei Esenin's НОЧЬ by Graham Dane, Edinburgh. Translation reproduced by permission of the translator:

NIGHT

The river flows quietly on.
In silence the dark wood lies.
Nightingale does not sing
And Corncrake hushes her cries.

Night. It’s still all around,
Except for the murmuring stream.
The moon covers all on the ground
With the light of its silvery beam.

Silvers the spreading river.
Silvers the trickling stream.
Silvers the glistening grass
Making the lush steppe gleam.

Night. It’s still all around,
Nature is settling to dream.
The moon covers all on the ground
With the light of its silvery beam.

Graham Dane
14 March 2009

(Note: the original can be sung to the tune of ‘Leise Rieselt der Schnee’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQHUGH9A4dU)

Graham Dane of Edinburgh emailed me a few days ago; having done a translation of the early Esenin poem in #66, he Googled and found our Esenin Translation Project thread. While he didn't wish to join us, he was willing for his translation to be posted here, with acknowledgement. Thank you, Graham!

A bit more information, and a couple of valuable links, from Graham. The key point: avoid laborious typing or scanning of the Russian originals!

Graham writes:

"I am working on another translation at the moment: Ты такая ж простая, как все.

By the way, no need to type or scan Yesenin's poetry into the computer - it's all there already.

Look at http://www.litera.ru/stixiya/authors/esenin/all.html or http://yandex.ru/yandsearch?serverurl=www.litera.ru%2Fstixiya&text=%E5%F1%E5...

Just compare what is on these sites with your copy and Bob's your uncle.

(By the way, it's not just the original of НОЧЬ which can be sung to Leise Rieselt der Schnee. My translation has the same metre.)"

Graham also asks a very interesting question: are we looking to publish some of our translations, either in print or on the web? This question was in my mind too, but I was going to raise it later in the year. What do you think?

Tim:

speaking only for myself, of course, I thoroughly enjoyed Black Man and working with it. I can see myself translating a number of others.

If there were interest, and we/someone thought it worthwhile, then YES, I would see publication worth pursuing.

well, I for one have greatly enjoyed reading the Esenin that everyone has posted here.

Go for a collected works as soon as possible I say. Or at least a webpage?

This i has nothing to do with Eseniin, but is an article on translating poetry in general, and on Aeschylus's Orestia Trilogy.

It might interest our poetry translators here.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/books/review/Leithauser-t.html?_r=1

Thanks so much for that link, Murr. I am immediately scurrying downstairs for my Oresteia translations. I know I have the Lattimore, probably the Lowell as well, and will buy the Carson. Greeks DO continue to fascinate me. My Theseus trek is continuing.

Apologies. This, too, is not directly related to Esenin, but I thought some Esenin admirers, or translators, might like the poem below:

Milan Rufus
translation by A. Stancek

Mom’s lattice-cake

Sunday’s dinners were elevated by it
and it was precious, like your hands, mom.
Today the sweet cake’s fragrance rests only in a poem.
Like you, it is gone into the unknown.

I watch sometimes from behind its bars
guessing who it is and why that brings me punishment.
I search and search...

And my time, tranquil, snows, snows
and snows, wanting no end.

Only sometimes it gives a nudge to me and my poem.
Life force fights with all its might,
what has been, will once be no more.

And thus a man has bars in his fate,
Joy-bringers long ago.

(This poem was distributed at Rufus’s funeral on January 18, 2009, together with pieces of the lattice-cake.)

Rufus is a major Slovak poet, born in 1928. He was repeatedly nominated for the Nobel Prize. He also, incidentally, translated Esenin into the Slovak.

Love it. another excellent translation from that A Stancek guy.

I too enjoyed the translation, Andrew! And the NYT article was interesting as well - I preferred the Lowell, and even the Lattimore, translations to the Carson, although the extracts from Anna Carson's translations may have been chosen to make a point by the article's author.

Well, that's a good point, but frankly I thought the excerpts that were chosen were awful, but then I'm a dreadful luddite.

I did classics as my minor, and i have passionate (blinding?) loyalties towards Greek drama, that trilogy in particular. It's a colossal masterpiece and needs to be treated with dignity. The best translation I know is Phillip Vellacot's for the Penguin Classics, which I first read when I was 17 or 18. It combines Lattimore's clunky dedication to the Greek scansion with a sparse, modernist- influenced diction and achieves moments of real expressive beauty, which is rare in translations from the Greek.

Here is Vellacott's version of the speech that was featured in the article.

Twelve full months now, night after night,
Dog-like I lie here, keeping guard from this high roof
On Attreus's palace. The nightly conference of stars,
Resplendent rulers, bringing heat and cold in turn,
Studding the sky with beauty - I know them all and watch them
Setting and rising...

It's like Prufrock reading Milton reading Aeschylus.

I still have my godfather's old paperback copy, purchased in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1960. It cost 2/6, according to the cover. It is very battered, the spine has completely crumbled, but the leaves still hold together, miraculously, with thread. It has been all over the world with me.

Murr, if I were like a cat of my acquaintance, I would say "I just peed my litterbox jumping up and down. :-)

I am so thrilled. The translation you mention above, which sounds wonderful, is STILL available. In addition to the Carson, which I will have to buy in order to see how NOT to do it, I am placing an order for the Vellacott. Thanks so much for bringing my attention to it.

Good! I hope you enjoy it!

OK, returning now to the intended aim of this thread, Esenin translation.

I discovered that my Czech books have neither the poem translated above by Graham Dane as Night, nor the one translated by citizenkelly and Tim as I Am Tired of Living/I Have Grown Tired of Life. I DO, however, have the one called I Am the Last Poet of the Village.

I have spent some time playing with the Czech version of it.

I will post my English version below, and since the other two translations are spread far apart here, will, for the amusement and comparison purposes of our readers, also reproduce the other two versions, trusting that citizenkelly and Tim will be OK with that.

The Last Poet of the Russian village

by Sergei Esenin (1920)
translated into Czech by Jan Zabrana (1965)
translated into English by A. Stancek (2009)

I am the last poet of my village,
No more than a creaky footbridge.
Memorial mass. Smoke from an incense-holder
Filled with the leaves of birches.

Their golden flame burns down
The candle formed of my body’s wax.
From the village clocks of the night moon
My midnight tolls.

Onto the paths of our blue fields
the guest will force its iron might.
The golden-sunned oats
Will be gathered by its black paw.

Lifeless, foreign, coarse palms
our songs have no wish to own up to you.
On and on, our flaxen-maned horses
will neigh for their old master.

The wind will soak up their neighing
playing a mournful dirge.
From the village clocks of no waiting
My midnight tolls.

citizenkelly’s version

I am the last poet of the village,
My song is just a bridge of boards.
The birch leaves sing their parting matins
and waft incense across my path.

With a golden flame the candle burns down,
made from the wax of my flesh,
and the wooden clock of the moon
will soon announce my twelfth hour, rasping.

Soon the iron guest will tread
The final path of the wide blue fields,
To reap with his black fist
the summer oats in the red glow of evening.

You dead, you alien hands,
In which this singing dies!
The ears of wheat alone will grieve,
like horses grieve their master.

The wind will catch their whinnying
When he dances the dance of death.
Soon, soon, the wooden clock
Will rasp my twelfth hour.

Tim’s version

I Am the Last Poet of the Village

I am the last poet of the village
The plank bridge is modest in my songs
I stand at the farewell mass
Of the incense-burning foliage of birches.

From corporeal wax a candle
Burns down with a golden flame
The wooden clock of the moon
Will wheeze my twelfth hour.

To the path of the sky-blue field
Soon the iron guest will come
And gather in his cupped black hands
The oatmeal grass spilled by the dawn.

Lifeless, alien palms
These songs don’t draw their life from you!
Only the grain-spiked horses’ ears
Will mourn the old master.

The wind will suck their neighing
Celebrating the funeral dance
Soon, soon the wooden clock
Will wheeze my twelfth hour.

Thanks for your translation, and for putting these together, Andrew - it's a fascinating comparison.

I should get time over Easter to post a couple more of my translations from 1995.

I'm having fun. If someone will translate to French, I will translate to English.

I love them all. They all catch the mood of the poem in their own ways. It reminds me of a Chagal painting. Thanks for your efforts people.

>81 polutropos: What an interesting exercise, and I, too, like them all.

Here's a Esenin translation to ponder at Easter. Original to follow (as it doesn't seem to be on either of the sites that Graham Dane recommended)

Sorokoust (Forty Days' Mourning for the Dead)
original by Sergei Esenin (1920)
translation by Tim Jones (1995)

(1)

Blows, blows the ruinous horn!
How then, how then should we live
On the dirty haunches of the road?

You, lovers of flea-songs,
Don’t you want to suck at a gelding?

Lots of ugly mugs will meekly take their chance
To know, to take, whether it’s pleasant or not
It’s good, when the twilight teases
And pours into our fat arses
The blood-stained besom of dawn.

Soon the first hoarfrost will bleach
That town and those meadows with lime
Nowhere can you hide from death
Nowhere escape your enemy’s clutches
There he is with iron belly, dragging to his throat
The outstretched hand of the plains.

The old windmill leads by its ear
Having freshened the flour-milling scent
And the silent homestead bull
Having shed all his brains to a calf
Wearing out his tongue against the ring
Has smelled trouble over the fields.

(2)

Ah, is that not why beyond the village
The accordion cries plaintively:
Ta-la-la-la, ti-li-li-li
Floats over the white windowsill?
And is that not why the yellow
Wind of autumn, having touched the blue with ripples
As if with a horse’s curry-comb
Combs out the leaves from the maples?
On, on rides the frightful herald
Smashing through one more thicket
And all long for a powerful song
Under the chirping of frogs in the thatch.
O electric sunrise
Blind grasp of belts and smoke-stacks
Behold how the steel fever shakes
The wooden belly of the izba!

(3)

Did you see
How, across the steppe
Vanishing in the lake fogs
With iron nostrils snorting
On cast-iron paws runs the train?

But behind it
Across the endless grass
As at a festival of desperate haste
With thin legs tossing up to its head
Gallops a red-maned colt?

Dear, dear, ridiculous fool
Where does he think he is dashing?
Does he really not know steel cavalry
Have conquered living horses?
Does he really not know that, in these irradiant fields
His racing will not bring back that age
When a pair of beautiful steppe women
A Pecheneg gave up for a stallion?
Now fate in markets has revalued
This stretch of track thrumming with the gnashing of teeth
And for a thousand poods of horse hide and meat
They buy a locomotive.

(4)

The devil take you, foul guest!
Our song will not grow used to you
It’s too bad that in your childhood
You did not drown, like a bucket lost down a well.
It’s good for them to stand and look
To paint their mouths in tin-plate kisses—
Only I, like a sexton, will sing
Above my native land “Alleluia”.
That is why in the fullness of September
On the cold and dry loam
Smashing her head against a wattle fence
The rowan drips with the blood of her berries.
That is why grief grew
In the fingerings of a chiming accordion
And the peasant, reeking of straw
Was choked by bad home-brewed vodka.

My scans of the original - the text is quite small, but you can use Zoom or increase the screen resolution to see it more clearly:

The ellipsis after the third line of the first stanza was where the Soviet-era censors removed two lines from my edition of Esenin's selected poems. The missing lines are:

Вы, любители пеcенных блох
Не хотите ль поcоcать у меринa?

which I translated as

You, lovers of flea-songs
Don't you want to suck at a gelding?

I'm not sure why these lines in particular attracted the censor's pencil.

I love those two lines.

SONG ABOUT A DOG

In the morning, inside the grain house
Among bags of golden rye
Seven red puppies arouse,
Seven simple souls come to life.

Their mother licked and fondled them
Until sunset started to glow,
Her heart with love pounded,
And her warm belly melted the snow.

But at night, when to sleep drawn
Hens hatched together in a pack,
The owner came and, frowned,
Put all seven in a sack.

She ran after him, hardly able
To follow in the deep snow . .
For a long, long time it trembled--
The unfrozen surface of the pond.

When back home she dragged, stumbled,
Licking sweat from her sides,
The moon above the hut resembled
One of her little ones.

She gazed into the night, whining,
Her eyes full of tears,
And the moon, slowly gliding,
Behind the hills disappeared.

And she felt bitter, as if a stone
Was thrown at her with a curse,
And the dog’s eyes, rolling down,
Fell into snow, like golden stars.
From Sergei YESENIN

CANCIÓN SOBRE LA PERRA

En la mañana en el granero,
En donde la piel dorada brilló
Los sietes parió la perra,
Los pelirrojos perritos nació.

Los acariciaba ella y nuevamente
Los peinaba con su lengua que brilló,
Y bajo su panza caliente
La nieve se fundió.

Pero en la noche cuando la gallina
Para dormir la vara apretó
El dueño serio vino
Todos sietes en bolsa metió.

Por la nieve blanca y fría
Ella corría detrás del. . . . .
Por mucho, mucho tiempo en el rió
Estuvo temblando el nivel.

Cuando ella regresaba,
Chupándose el sudor que le correa,
Mirando la luna, pensaba
Que su cachorro aparecía.

Al cielo negro nublado,
Llorando, ella miró. . . .
Deslizando, la luna delgada
Atrás la colina se desapareció.

Miserable, siente ella
Que alguien la engañó.
Y como dorada estrella
Su lagrima en la nieve cayo´.

Thanks for posting these, gbrengauz! Are these translations taken from the Yesenin books in your library, or are they your own work? Either way, it's good to see them here - and I would be very interested to learn more about your interest in Yesenin.

And I am very interested to learn more about your project, Tim Jones. The translations are mine from my books: Yesenin/Complete Poetical Works in English ISBN: 9780970580382 and the Spanish version from RUSSIAN SOUL in Rhymes, Movements, and Paintings/by Yesenin,Duncan,Levitan.
I am president of FLORIDIAN PUBLISHER. Website: yesenin.com
address: yesenin2000@yahoo.com Tel: 850 421- 5979. We could also communicate on Yahoo! Messenger . Am interested in publishing English translations of Russian poets and writers. Tell me, please, Tim all you could about this project.
- Gregory

WOW! This is getting more and more interesting!

My dear friends. More and more monuments to Yesenin are now in Russia. He is the best Russian poet going to be recognized internationally
as Cervantes and Shakespeare are. I am happy to find you, who love Yesenin as I do. Tell me please, your names and how do you know about Yesenin. Look, please, at my translations and make the critiques

Scarlet sunset throws on the lake
Its brilliant hood.
One can hear the pheasants’ cry
Somewhere in the wood.

The oriole is crying too,
Hidden in her nest.
But I cannot cry tonight,
My heart is filled with zest.

I am sure I’ll meet you soon
At the end of the day.
We will go and sit on the piles
Of fresh fragrant hay.

I’ll tenderly kiss you,
Flower of the field.
Both of us will be drunk with love,
But there’s no guilt.

Under caresses you’ll take
Off your silken gown--
Under bushes we will hide
Until the light of dawn.

Let the day come to an end,
Let the pheasants cry –
Joyful sadness to my soul
From the scarlet sky.
1910.

THE NIGHT

Like a boat, the river sails.
In a dark mist woods stand by,
Quits her song the nightingale,
The pheasant too stops his cry.

Night. All about is calm,
It is the spring’s only sound.
And the moon, full of charm,
Paints in silver all around:

Silver river's cool streams,
Silver spring's quiet sounds,
Silver grass deep in dreams,
Silver woods, silver grounds.

Night. All about is calm.
Deeply in sleep nature rests.
But the moon, full of charm,
Spreads on earth silver mists.
1911

Sorocoust*
(*Prayers for the dead)
1

Trumpet, trumpet, victory horn!
What’re we doing in dirt, our legs mucking?
You, poetry lovers just sworn,
And you, lovers old and worn,
Would you like f . .ing?

Enough of your timidity shows,
Bad or good—take it as is.
It’s good when the dusk grows
And hits our butts below
With a red-twig broom like this.

Soon frost will whitewash sterile
The village and landscape--
Nowhere to hide from peril,
Nowhere from foes to escape.

Their iron bellies are near,
Their paws reach the neck of the field--
The old mill moves its ears,
Its nostrils a foreign scent feels.

And guard of the yard--silent bull,
Who his brains on young cows has spent,
Wipes his tongue on the spinning wheel,
The danger to fields he can scent.

2

Ah, aren’t they also the cause
Of the harmonica cries?
From far away its music flows;
At the windowsill it dies.

The yellow wind of autumn
Blows away the dead leaves’ corpses,
Cleans maples from tops to bottoms,
As if brushing hair off horses.

He is coming, the herald of doom.
That’s why the fir trees are pining,
And songs sound so hopeless with gloom
Of the gray mice in straw pilings.

The electric light drives the beasts insane.
Oh, grasp of gears, the asphalt rivers!
The wooden bellies of huts, poor and plain,
Shaken with maddened steel fever.

3
Have you ever seen
In the vast lands
In the mist of lakes hiding,
A running train?
Like a snake it bends,
On its iron paws gliding.

After him
On grass, high and wet,
As if in the running races,
Lifting his thin legs up to his head
A red-mane colt races.

Darling, darling, funny little boy!
Where, where does he run, tiring?
Doesn’t he know he’s just a toy?
Instead of live horses come horses of iron.

Doesn’t he know gone are those days,
When, for a horse, two Russian girls were given?
That in the prairies’ space
He will lose the race?
He can’t win! And he even
Can’t make it even.

Things are changed, wrong or right.
The great engine came, the oily glimmer.
A thousand tons of horses – flesh and hides –
Are traded now for a black steamer.
4

Devil take you, unwanted guest!
With your clanging our songs won’t live well.
It is a pity that you, a stranger from the west,
Were not drowned long ago like a bucket in a well.

It’s easy for me: on a corner I stay,
The passersby idly viewing,
But I must for the dead my prayers say,
And like a preacher sing alleluia.

I must stay in defense
Of blue skies and gold prairies,
Like the ash tree that broke its head on a fence,
Pouring out the blood of red berries.

That’s why a sadness creeps into Russian song,
And an accordion cries with a sad sound.
That’s why a peasant drinks vodka—strong –
Glass after glass, till he falls to the ground.
1920.

My Soul Is Dreaming of The Sky

My soul is dreaming of the sky
It doesn’t belong to this earth--gloomy.
I love to watch the trees on high
The green mysterious fire is moving.

Like candlelight, the golden trees
Gleam with a secret, great and awesome.
The words, like stars, their light increase,
And soon the trees will start to blossom.

Earth’s language I do understand.
And I can see great waters rolling
And from the place, where now I stand,
The reflection of a comet falling.

Like horses, waving tails, who couldn’t
Get rid of the moon that drinks their manes . . . .
Oh, if I could grow roots, I wouldn’t
Mind sucking earth’s juice with my veins.
1919.

I Am The Last Poet of The Countryside

I am the last poet of the countryside.
I sing of a shy wooden bridge,
Of birch trees, a sad farewell sight,
Of leaves raining on the forest ridge.

Very soon a golden flame will break
On the candle, the narrow spike;
The hoarse sound of a wooden clock
My twelfth hour soon will strike.

On a path in the blue field
Soon will come the iron guest.
The grain, by sunrise spilled,
His black hand will reap and wrest.

Not alive is the iron hand,
My songs with the stranger won’t live--
In the fields, oaten ears will bend,
While they for the old owner grieve.

The wind will suck the neigh of a horse
And dance farewell on a dike . . .
Soon, soon the wooden clock hoarse
My twelfth hour will strike.
1920.

Man in Black

Friend, my friend,
I am sick; I am exhausted wholly.
I myself don’t know
Where it comes from--this pain.
Maybe it is the wind, whistling
Over the empty, deserted valley,
Or, like leaves in September,
The alcohol sweeps off my brain.

As with wings, my ears flap
On my head, up and down,
As if it wants to take off
From my body and fly away.
A man in black,
Black, black,
A man in black
On my bed sits down.
The man in black
Doesn’t let me sleep—he stays.

Along the lines of a book
Moving his forefinger,
And preaching,
As if I am deceased,
He reads about a life
Of a drunkard and a swindler,
Blowing a fear into my heart
That I can hardly resist.

“Listen, listen,”--
In a whisper he went,
“In this book there are
Plenty of ideas and wonders.
This man lived in the land
Of the most disgusting
Burglars and squanderers.

“In December in that land
Snow is devilishly white;
And the snowstorms on flutes
Merry songs are playing.
The man was adventurous,
And very bright,

“He was an adventurer,
A good sort of human being.

“He also was a poet,
Handsome and bold,
Not yet fully matured,
But forceful and daring.
The man had a woman,
Forty years old,
Calling her ‘My little girl, and
My darling.’

“’Happiness,’ - he was saying,
Is a sleight of hand.
The timid people
Are always unhappy.
It doesn’t matter
If in the end
We suffer false gestures,
And lies, sharp and snappy.

“’In storms or showers,
When one feels the sharp cold,
Or suffers heavy losses,
Or in a disaster,
To look happy and to smile
To the entire world
Is the art of life
One must learn to master.’”

“Listen, man in black!
Don’t you dare say this!
Are you from hell,
As one of the devil’s warriors?
I couldn’t care less
For that poet. Please,
Tell others
Your scandalous stories.”

He looked at me, the black man,
With contempt in his gaze.
I could see in his eyes,
With blue film covered,
That he wanted to say
I’m a brazen faced,

Shameless robber,
And a disgusting coward.
…………………………

Friend, my friend,
I am sick; I am exhausted wholly.
I myself don’t know,
Where it comes from – this pain.
Maybe it is the wind, whistling
Over the empty, deserted valley,
Or, like leaves in September,
The alcohol sweeps off my brain.

Freezing night.
The intersection is calm for a long time.
I’m alone at the window,
Not expecting a guest, or a friend.
The field is covered by snow
As if by white quicklime.
Trees—horsemen--have gathered
In the yard’s farther end.

Somewhere a sinister
Night bird is crying.
Wooden horsemen are sowing
The sound of the hooves.
Here again comes the black man,
On my chair he sits down,
Lifting his elegant top hat,
Throwing his jacket off.

“Listen, listen!” –
He looks in my face,
Hoarsely words uttering. –
“I’ve never seen a swindler,
A brazen face
With insomnia
Needlessly suffering.

“Ah, suppose I am mistaken!
The moon is bright,
What else does one need
To be happy ?
With her fleshy thighs
‘She’ might secretly come tonight,
And you will read to her
Your fragile, rotten poetry.

“Ah, I love poets!
What funny folks!
The familiar picture
To my soul is flattering:
A longhaired guy
To a pimpled girl talks
Of the far away worlds--
Pain in his testes he’s suffering.

“Don’t remember exactly,
In Riazan somewhere,
In the country side
With its wonders
A boy lived there,
Blue-eyed, yellow-haired,
In a family
Of simple farmers.

“He became a poet,
Handsome and bold,
Although not yet mature,
But forceful and daring.
He met a woman
Forty years old,
He called her ‘Little girl, and
My darling.”’

“Man in black,
You are not an invited guest.
You are an infamous man,

The worst of those!”
I could stand no more –
There it went,
My elegant walking stick,
Straight to his nose.
………………………….

The moon died.
In the window dawn’s blue light.
Ah, you night!
What have you done to me?
I am standing in my top hat.
There is nobody inside.
I am alone . . .
Broken mirror in front of me . . . .
1925.



Now One by One We Are Leaving

Now one by one we are leaving
To an unknown land named Paradise.
Maybe soon for me the bell will be ringing
For the last time from bed to rise.

Oh, my darlings, birches of the valley!
Dear earth, and you, my sandy hills!
Those leaving for the promised land, the holy,
Made me suffer a wound that never heals.

All that has a soul on this planet
With my tender heart I loved too much,
To the timid willows at sunset
On the rosy pond I am attached.

Many thoughts came to me in silence,
Many poems and songs to sing and thrive.
I was happy on this earth so sullen,
Happy just to breathe and be alive.

I am happy I had kissed the women,
Picked up flowers, on grass a book peruse,
And the animals, small brothers of human,
Since my childhood never I abused.

There among the grass I wouldn’t ramble
There a fire doesn’t spark in the hearth.
That’s why I look with awe and tremble
Upon these leaving our earth.

In Paradise the fields of rye don’t grow
Plated by the rising sun in gold.
That’s why on this earth, where sunrise glows,
In my heart, all those I love I hold.
1924.

Answer me, please.
- Gregory Brengauz
yesenin2000@yahoo.com,

Thanks for the additional translations, Gregory. I'm sorry I haven't replied yet; I am flat out with another poetry project at the moment and have had very little time for LibraryThing recently. I will post a fuller explanation of this group no later than this coming weekend (unless anyone else wants to do it first), but in the meantime, if you go to http://www.librarything.com/topic/52771 and read the conversation that starts at Message 44, you'll find an explanation of why I started this topic and how my interest in his poetry arose.

Lovers of poetry might be interested in the Seifert poem newly posted on my thread.

Hello All,
I'm so glad I found this group.Cause I will be asking for help:) and opinions.My masters thesis is on the visibility of the translator, due to the decisions taken and Iwill be observing translations of Esenin into Turkish and English.But the main thing I want to focus on is the most commonly used symbols such as the moon.I need specific and reliable information to refer to on my thesis.I have checked many books and journals on the internet but I haven't found much.If anybody could help me, I would really appreciate it .

Thanks alot!

Dear serbel,

Thanks for getting in touch. It's been fairly quiet on this thread lately, so I hope your enquiry will provoke some more responses.

I'm happy to help in terms of the translations I've done, and I hope others with contribute with regard to their own translations. But first, can you give us some more details of exactly what information you're looking for from translators?

Dear TimJones,
Thanks a lot for your reply. I need some information on the most commonly used images by Yeseninn such as the moon, blue, pink, bells, birtch, the road, horses...Any ideas, any book reference or any related information would be more than helpful.I am also hoping I can translate some poems into Turkish one day.I lived in Ryazan , in the village Rubtsova as an exchange student and 10 years after that I'm finding the chance , thanks to my thesis, to learn more about Yesenin and his poetry...I'm excited.
Thanks alot!

Dear Eserbel,

I, too, have contributed some translations of Esenin here, and would be happy to help, but I am also uncertain of what it is you need. It seems to me, perhaps misunderstanding, that what you really are after is not help that can be supplied by translators, but is likelier to be supplied by literary critics. Yes, Esenin uses the images you mention. Yes, they are images frequently used in poetry. Yes, sometimes Esenin uses them in unusual ways. There are traditional interpretations of them, and some specific to Esenin. But it seems to me that it is critical interpretation of Esenin which you are really seeking.

Dear Polutropos,
I understand your confusion, you are right, I can, and have better, get help from literary critics as well.As I mentioned, I am newly learning about Yesenin and I thought, there might be some translators who can give examples of the mostly used images.And the meaning behind them.As I think although translators are not literary critics and they don't have to and cant really stick with the source text, they have some awareness of whats in the poems.

Thanks alot for your interest.

eserbel, this article I wrote about Esenin, originally a University essay, may contain something useful to you:

http://users.actrix.co.nz/timjones/esenin_project.rtf

Thank you timjones!Thank you so much!!!This is exactly what I needed!!Will you allow me to show your article as a reference in my thesis which I will submit to Istanbul university?Well, here is my e-mail adress in casey ou would like to give me details on your name , etc.: eserbelul@hotmail.com

I think Ponomoreff's book will be a good resource too and I am waiting for it to arrive (god knows when), Are there any other resources you can recommend?

This has been really encouraging, thank you!!

Eser!

I'm glad the article was so helpful to you, Eser - and I'll email you separately about it. There aren't any resources I can recommend beyond those listed at the end of the article - can anyone else recommend newer sources than those my 1995 article uses?

Primarily for Eser, who's asked for them, I'm going to post my remaining Esenin translations over the next few days. I won't post the Russian originals unless someone asks for them, to avoid clogging up the thread too much. Here we go!

Inoniia ("Otherland")

(to the prophet Jeremiah)

I am not scared of death
Nor spears, nor arrows like rain —
And so it says in the Bible
Prophet Esenin Sergei.
My time has drawn nigh
I do not fear the knout
It is the body of Christ
That I spit out from my mouth
I don’t want to receive salvation
Through Christ’s torments and the cross:
Mine is a different doctrine
Where death does not caper on truth.
I clip the pale-blue heavens
Like dirty wool from a sheep
Raising my hands to the moon
I’ll bite through it, like a nut
I don’t want an unreachable heaven
Don’t want the snow to fall
Don't want a sullen dawn
To frown above our lakes.
Today I talked, like a hen,
With a golden egg made of words
Today with a flexible hand
I am ready to change the world…
Eight wings from my shoulders
Like a terrible blizzard spill

(2)

The iron clamour of Russia’s bells
Resounds from the wall of the Kremlin
I will raise you, O Earth,
To the stars on your hind legs.
I’ll reach out to the invisible town
Bite through the milky veil
Even pull out the beard of God.
I will seize his white mane
With my bared teeth
And tell him in my blizzard voice:
I’m prepared to remake you, Lord
To ripen my meadow of words!

I curse at the breath of Kitezh
And all the hollows of its road
I want us in the fathomless depths
To raise for ourselves a mansion
I will lick clean on icons
The faces of martyrs of saints
I promise you the city Inoniia
Where the god of the living lives!
Weep and wail, Muscovy!
A new Indikoplov has come
All the prayers in your Book of Hours
I will peck with my beak of words
I will free your people from false hope
I will give them faith and might
So that, as day breaks,
they will plough up the night with the sun
So that their field made of words
Will grow grass like beehives
So that the grain will impart
Like bees, a golden tint to the night.

I curse you, Radonezh,
Your heels and all their tracks!
Deposits of golden fire
You mined with a pick-axe of water
A seething flock of your clouds
Like a pack of furious wolves
All baying, all emboldened
Has gored with its spear of teeth
Your sun with its sharp-clawed paws
Has stabbed into the soul like a knife.
We wept by the rivers of Babylon
And were wet by bloody rain
Today in the roar of a storm
I shout as I take off Christ’s trousers:
“Wash my hands and hair
From the wash-tub of a second moon.”
I tell you — you will all perish
All smothered by the moss of faith
Above our horizon, re-made,
God has swollen up with a cow
And vainly flee into caves
Those who fear its first bellow
For he will calve all the same
Another sun to shine on Russia’s roof
That calf will burn with the fire
That forged the river to its banks
His golden horns will
Butt at the world’s seething.
A new Olympian will descend
To carve out his new face.
I tell you — I will drink dry the air
And stretch out my tongue like a comet
Even to Egypt I will spread my legs
And unshoe your horseshoes of torture…
Into both snowy-horned poles
I will jab the pincers of my hands
Pressing the Equator with my knee
Beneath the wailing of storm and whirlwind
I will break in half our earth mother
Like a golden wheatmeal loaf.
And into that fissure, shaded by the abyss
So that all the world will hear the crash
Like the brightness of the sun
I will thrust my starry-haired head
And four suns from the cloud
Like four barrels down a mountain
Strewing their golden hoops
Will roll down and rock the worlds.

(3)

And I tell you, America,
Broken-off half of the earth—
Don’t dare across the seas of unbelief
To send your iron ships!
Don’t cover our rivers with granite,
Our cornfields with your cast-iron rainbow.
Only by the free waters of Ladoga
Will humanity grasp life’s essence!
Don’t hammer into waste ground
With your blue hands the vault of the heavens:
You cannot build with nail-heads
The radiance of the far-off stars
You will not quench fiery ferment
With a drift of iron ore.
I will leave the footsteps
Of a new advent on the Earth.
With heels dangling from the clouds
I will trample rainclouds, like an elk
I will attach the sun and moon like wheels
To the axle of the equator.
I say to you — don’t chant prayers
To your rays of wire
They will not bless the advent
of a sheep running over the mountains.
Among you will be an archer
To shoot an arrow into his breast
Like a flame, warm blood will spurt
From his white wool into the darkness
Like stars, having furrowed the night
The golden hooves will roll down
And the rain will again start to gleam
Like needles above its black stocking.
Then will I crash down like thunder
With the sun and moon for wheels
Like a fire, I will scatter hairs
And cover its face with my wing.
By the ears I will shake the mountains
And stretch out the feather-grass with spears
With my cupped hand I will sweep away
Like dust, all your palings and fences.

And I will plough up the black cheeks
Of your fields with a new plough;
The harvest, like a golden magpie,
Will fly above your land.
It will drop to those who live there
A new sound of many-eared wings
And, like golden poles, the sun
Will stretch out its rays on the dale.
New pine-trees will grow
Upon the palms of your fields
And yellow springs will bound
Like squirrels on the boughs of days
Bursting through the final dam
The rivers will start to shine blue
And the dawn, letting down its eyelids
Will use them to catch starry fish.
I say to you — there will come a time
When thunders when splash from lips;
The spikes of your cereal crops
Will pierce the sky’s pale-blue crown.
And above the world, filling field and meadow
Having bitten through the moon’s heart
From an invisible ladder, crowing,
The cock will take flight.

(4)

On the clouds, as if on a field,
I walk with my head hanging down.
I hear a light-blue downpour’s splash
And the piping of thin-billed stars.
I reflect in dark-blue backwaters
My far-flung lakes.
I see you, Inoniia
And your golden mountains’ crowns
I see your fields and peasant huts
With my old mother on the porch;
She is trying to catch in her fingers
The ray of the setting sun
She will grasp it by the window
Will clutch it to her back —
While the sun, like a cat,
Drags a ball towards itself.
And below the stream’s faint whisper
A quiet echo is heard from the hills
As a song spills from the mountains
Like drips from an invisible candle:
“Glory to God in the heavens
And peace on Earth!
The moon’s dark-blue horn
Has broken through the clouds
Someone has taken a goose
From the egg of a star
To peck the footsteps
Of radiant Jesus.
Someone with a new faith
Without cross and torments
Has drawn in the sky
The arc of a rainbow.
Rejoice, Zion
Shine your light!
Just above the horizon
A new Nazareth has come forth.
A new saviour towards the village
Is riding on a mare
Our faith — in strength
Our truth — in us!”

All Living Creatures Are Marked By A Special Sign

All living creatures are marked
From birth by a special sign
If not a poet, I would, I’m sure
Have become a scoundrel and a thief

Thin and stunted
A hero to my urchin friends
Often it was with broken nose
I came back to my home

And going up to my frightened mother
I muttered through bloody teeth:
“It’s nothing! I stumbled over a stone
This will all heal up by morning.”

And here and now, when
The ferment of those days has cooled
That restless, reckless self
Has spilled itself into my poems

A golden mound of words
And over all of them resounds
The childhood daring of
A brawler and young terror

Like then, I’m proud and brave
Treading only on virgin soil…
If formerly they hit me in the snout
Now my whole soul is bloodied

So now I say, not to my mother
But to an alien, laughing rabble
“It’s nothing! I stumbled over a stone
This will all heal up by morning.”

The Lord went out to test the people's love

The Lord went out to test the people’s love
Dressed as a beggar, he set out on the road.
On an oak grove stump, an old man sat chewing
Squeezing a stale bun with his weary gums.

The old man saw the beggar in the road
Hobbling down the path, walking stick in hand
And thought “See, now there’s a pauper
Looking like he’s falling through from hunger.”

The Lord approached, hiding his sorrow and torment
It’s clear, he thought, you will not touch their hearts
And then the old man said, holding out his hand,
“Here, chew this … you’ll be a little stronger.”

I Feel God's Mourning For The Dead

I feel God’s mourning for the dead
I do not live in vain
I worship by the wayside
I prostrate myself on the grass

Between the pines, between the firs,
Among the curly beads of branches
Under the garland, within the ring of needles
Dimly to me appears Jesus

He calls me to the leafy forest
As to the Kingdom of Heaven
And the sheltered forest, like clouds
Burns in lilac brocade

The dove-like spirit of God
Like a tongue of fire
Has seized control of my journey
Has muffled my weak cry

A flame kindles the depths of vision
My heart rejoices like a child’s
I have believed from birth
In the protection of the Virgin.

Wake Me Early Tomorrow

Wake me early tomorrow
O my patient mother!
I will go to the roadside barrow
To meet our precious guest

Today in the dense forest I saw
The track of wide wheels in the meadow
Under the tent of cloud
The wind pulls his golden shaft-bow

He will fly by tomorrow at dawn
Once the moon hides under the bushes
And the little mare will wave her red tail
In play above the plain

Wake me early tomorrow
Kindle a lamp in our best room
They say that I will soon become
A famous Russian poet

I will sing of you and our guest
Of our stove, our cock, and our roof…
And over my songs will spill
The milk of your russet cows.

Songs, Songs, What Do You Cry About?

Songs, songs, about what are you wailing?
Do I have nothing more to give you?
I am learning to plait in my curls
The threads of a light-blue peace.

I want to be quiet and severe
I am learning silence from the stars
Like the willows by the road
I keep watch over dreaming Rus’

It’s good in this moonlit autumn
To roam through the grass alone
And pick ears of grain by the road
To drop in my beggar’s sack

But the dark-blue plains do not heal me
Songs, songs, can’t I shake you off?
The golden broom of evening
Clears my level path

So I rejoice at the cry in the forest
I hear dying away on the wind:
“Be as cold, you, the living
As the autumn gold of the limes.”

Green Coiffure

Green coiffure
Maidenly breast
O slender birch
What do you stare at in the pond?

What does the wind whisper to you?
About what sifts the sand?
Do you want, in your leafy hair
To snare the crested moon?

Unveil, reveal to me the secret
Of your wooden thoughts —
For I have come to love
Your sad autumnal noise

“Inquisitive friend,”
The birch replied,
“Here last night the shepherd
Shed tears beneath the stars.”

The moon spread shadows
Shining green
He gripped my trunk
With his bare knees

My branches rustled
And he sighed
“Farewell, my dear
Till the new cranes fly.”

Now My Love Is Not The Same

(to Kliuev)

Now my love is not the same.
Ah, I know, you grieve, you
Grieve that pools of words
Have not spilled from the moon’s broom

Mourning and rejoicing at the star
Which settles on your brows
You sang out your heart to the izba
But failed to build a home in your heart

And what you hoped for every night
Has passed your roof by once again
Dear friend, for whom then did you gild
Your springs with singing speech?

You will not sing about the sun
Nor glimpse from your window paradise
Just as the windmill, flapping its wing
Cannot rise up from the earth.

Mysterious World, My Ancient World

Mysterious world, my ancient world
You have died away in fright, like the wind
As the stony hands of the highway
Have seized the village by the neck

And so the ringing terror begins to rush about
In the snowy whiteness of the fields
Greetings to you, my black ruin
I am leaving my thicket to meet you!

City, city, in our brutal struggle
You told us we were carrion and scum
The field, choked with telegraph poles
Is frozen with ox-eyed anguish

The neck of the devil is sinewy
And easy is its cast-iron road
What of it? Surely we are not the first
To fall apart and disappear

Let the heart be more receptive than the grove
To my song of wild animals’ rights
Thus hunters persecute the wolf
Squeezing in the beaters’ vice

The beast comes forth … and from the depths
A finger tenses on the trigger…
A sudden leap … and foeman’s flesh
The fangs tear into pieces

Oh, I salute you, beloved beast!
Not in vain do you accept the knife
Like you, I, hunted everywhere
Walk among iron foes

Like you, I am always alert
And though I hear the victory bugle
Still my last, dying leap
Will find the enemy’s throat

And even if, in the whitened fields
I fall and am buried in the snow
Still a song of vengeance for my downfall
They will be singing on that other shore.

I've now posted all 15 translations I listed in message #23 above. Hope you like them/find them useful!

Thanks alot!They will definetely be of great help:)

I have just discovered that Jim Harrison, a writer I know and admire, has written a book called Letters to Yesenin. It is described as

"Jim Harrison's gorgeous, desperate, and harrowing "correspondence" with Sergei Yesenin-a Russian poet who committed suicide after writing his final poem in his own blood-is considered an American masterwork.

In the early 1970s, Harrison was living in poverty on a hardscrabble farm, suffering from depression and suicidal tendencies. In response he began to write daily prose-poem letters to Yesenin. Through this one-sided correspondence, Harrison unloads to this unlikely hero, ranting and raving about politics, drinking problems, family concerns, farm life, and a full range of daily occurrences. The rope remains ever present.

Yet sometime through these letters there is a significant shift. Rather than feeling inextricably linked to Yesenin's inevitable path, Harrison becomes furious, arguing about their imagined relationship: "I'm beginning to doubt whether we ever would have been friends."

In the end, Harrison listened to his own poems: "My year-old daughter's red robe hangs from the doorknob shouting Stop."

I think I will have to buy this book.

It sounds like it could be amazing.

Wow! That I would like to read! If you do buy it, Andrew, please let us know what you think of it.

Hi guys, my name is Dim Nick and I am from Greece. It's been only a few time since I read all the discussion in this wonderfull topic and today join the club. I must confess I'm not good on technology in general but just an average user so please forgive my unfamiliarity with tech dialect and terminology in advance. Mr. timjones I really enjoyed too much your translating work on Esenin (I'm used to write it as ''Yesenin'', I'm not sure if it's right but doesn't matter) who happens to be my ''soulmate poem'' - from all the Russian avantgarde poetry of the early 20th cen. as well as Voodya Vysotsky later - since my early youth. He's also been one of the few beloving poets atracted me that powerfully to translate in my language since I rarely do translate poetry indeed prefering stay on writting my own. I'd like very much to hear from you, if there's yet interest in this topic after so long time since 2009 as I can see. My greetings to you and all the people I had the pleasure to read here and, if you see my msg and answer, let me know if you would like me to post some of my Yesenin's translations in Greece. Thak you.

Good to hear from you, DimNick! While I haven't done anything more with my Esenin translations since the work we did in this group, I would certainly be keen to see yours, if you're happy to post them.

Rather than using this 2009 thread, how about we set up a new group in which these can be posted? If you think this is a good idea, you're welcome to set the group up - or I can if you prefer.

Dear Tim, I'm glad to hear from you and thanks for your response. I'd rather you do it if you can as I am still studing the ''tricks'' here and will take some time to learn. Just when it's done let me Know how to know and find it. Have a very good day and weekend my friend. Thank you again!

Will do - as long as I remember how! - this evening NZ time, all being well, and then let you know.

Ok Tim, I be waiting for your 'signal' and come along. Thank you and have a nice day.

>125 DimNick:: My apologies - I ran out of time last night, but I have now created the group at:

https://www.librarything.com/groups/esenintranslationpro

Please try joining and let me know if you have any difficulty - if it all works smoothly, I'll invite other people from Club Read (and other groups that might be interested) to join.

I think I did it Tim and worked fine I hope. I have alredy posted in the topic at: https://www.librarything.com/topic/173963 named '' about Yesenin's translation''... I guess it's alright and looking forward to your response. Thanks again!