“I am here together with myself and alone”
The great Russian poet Alexey Tsvetkov just passed away (February 1947- May 12, 2022).
He is a world-class poet, a world poet who happened to write in Russian.
Tsvetkov created his own poetic language, unrepeatable, addictive. Once started, a poem or a book could not be put down. One read to the end possessed by its magic. His incredible play, not of words, but of thoughts and images, bewitched the reader, as did his humor.
Alexey told us: whenever I write, I always write about death. The poet puts what’s created along with what is unsayable into metaphorical form. That is the power of poetry by Tsvetkov: he always writes about what is most important, what is deepest and darkest, presented metaphorically with an amazing mastery of words and meanings. His style of recital I would characterize as toreutic, precise, cadential, and, on the other hand, paradoxically close to a natural speech, personal verbal communication.
Born in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine, formerly the Austro-Hungarian empire, Tsvetkov was educated in Odessa and Moscow. In Moscow together with other famous poets (Soprovsky, Gandlevsky, Kenzheev) he founded legendary underground poetry group Moscow Time. He emigrated to USA in 1975 after his arrest in Moscow and forced move to the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhya. He was awarded PhD degree in Slavic Studies from University of Michigan.
Tsvetkov spent many years in Europe working as a journalist for the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe (Munich and Prague, 1989-2004). He anchored the RFE/RL Russian Service programs The Seventh Continent and The Atlantic Diary. He lived his last years in New York City among his poet friends. Supporting himself as a freelance journalist and essayist, he produced a large body of original, unique and very popular poetry. He read his poems at the Cornelia Street Café, Russian Samovar, Columbia University and other venues. In 2018 he moved to Israel, where he died.
Tsvetkov was an individual of very broad erudition, rough on the surface, very kind, with stunning sharp sense of humor. His poems in English are most unusual: cadential, almost syllabo-tonic, very tight. But it looked very natural - the same poet, writing in a different language.
He was the author of ten books of poetry and translated Shakespeare’s Hamlet. His heritage will be studied and it will take a long time to look into layers of Tsvetkov’s art and thought.
Alexey Tsvetkov
the quiet ones
in a recurring dream i find myself
stuck in a tiny town a green and neat
affair the locals scarce and studiously silent
for the most part avoid me and stay indoors
although i dwell among them i assume
myself to be a thing apart the town
is strangely shorn of outskirts there's a river
flowing from north to south and the main street
cutting across with a bridge in the middle
yet both are terminated in oblivion
beset by this conundrum i've come up
with a hypothesis perhaps the locals
are candidates to be born on earth that never
made up their minds about the matter shaped
in human form already but afraid
to take the plunge hedging their bets and this
is what the actual limbo is like the river
forever runs on the road likewise but both
resolve themselves into the void the locals
would find it pointless to wake up their green
and tidy town remains the same no matter
whichever side of the retina it's on
the quiet ones within their silent walls
what do they want of us they share no subject
with us to serve them as a starting point
for striking up a palaver
it looks
like a half-way house perhaps a railway station
but with the waiting crowd resigned to the tracks
having been dismantled so that no train will ever
stop here they look alive but never having
been actually exiled to our vale of grief
there is no way for them to share our joy
the only thing they envy us in earnest
is death denied to the unborn it is
a mystery for them and a temptation
and i remaining stubbornly asleep
fall into a confusion like a rabbit
teasing a python on the eve of being
consumed by the above and peeking under
death's skirts then part of me awakens i
recall the other's name but hush it up
Andrey Gritsman
In Memory of Alexey Tsvetkov
What can be said about unsayable?
Poet departs with all his belongings.
To say nothing: it is unbearable.
On tree of life - invisible markings.
His airborne light verbs, evasive,
Escapable, straight and relentless.
Who knows what one is capable
Of, while alive and restless.
What is left now: only new language
Speaking in tongues, and no sound.
He rests in peace, his last message
Only by those can be found
Only by those, who departed
Crossing the line into darkness
Keeping belongings in heart and
Calling him: the answer is silence.
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