Sergei Esenin — Fifteen Poems (1915–1916)
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.
Fifteen lyrics by Sergei Esenin from 1915 and 1916 — the village poet at twenty, singing Rus' before everything changed: a dancer stamping out the beat while the matchmakers are already on their way, a wreath woven for Rus' alone, war tidings that fly in like a stray bird and are read as psalms over fallen sons, and a sorceress whirling through the blizzard with snakes for earrings. A churchyard wake gleams with kolivo white as snow, an old grandfather rakes his chaff under a playing sunbeam, and a creed that has not gone out faces the iron ringing of chains. Then a mermaid sings her New Year song from under the ice, a sonnet freezes tears into pearls, and the poems of 1916 open out: a monastery loved with a crane's longing on a high hill, crimson spread in patterns over a white field, the moon walking as a curly lamb beyond the dark copses, a homecoming to the smoking earth of the native family, a farewell among the crimson bushes, and at last a white country road lost in thought over the red evening, while the barley straw sighs from the lips of nodding cows.
The fifteen poems, in order: The Dancer (Плясунья); To Rus' (Руси); They Came Flying Like a Stray Bird… (Занеслися залётною пташкой); The Sorceress (Колдунья); The Wake (Поминки); Grandfather (Дед); Our Faith Has Not Gone Out… (Наша вера не погасла); The Mermaid on New Year's Eve (Русалка под Новый год); Sonnet (Сонет); Beyond the Hills, Beyond the Yellow Valleys… (За горами, за жёлтыми долами); Again It Spread Out in Patterns… (Опять раскинулся узорно); Beyond the Dark Strand of Copses… (За тёмной прядью перелесиц); I Am Here Again, in My Native Family… (Я снова здесь, в семье родной); Not to Wander, Not to Crush in the Crimson Bushes… (Не бродить, не мять в кустах багряных); The Road Grew Thoughtful over the Red Evening… (О красном вечере задумалась дорога). By Sergei Esenin, in new English verse translations made for this show, read aloud over a gentle instrumental bed.
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