Read in the 9-24-15 issue of the NYROB a review by Michael Scammell of
/Mayakovsky, a biography/ by Bengt Jangfeldt, 2014. So I bought it as
well as /Vladimir Mayakovsky, Selected Poems, /translated from the
Russian by James H. McGavran III, 2013. At one time Mayakovsky was
considered the greatest Russian poet, but he supported Communism with
his writing and so when Russia abandoned Communism, they abandoned
Mayakovsky as well. Jangfeldt thinks that was unjust and that
Mayakovsky wrote a lot that didn't support Communism. Furthermore,
toward the last (Mayakovsky committed suicide at age 37) he no longer
supported Communism. Furthermore, thinks Jangfeldt, Mayakovsky /is a
great poet./
/Selected Poems /begins with little prose bits. Mayakovsky spent a lot
of time in and out of prison for being a socialist. Here is part of
"Eleven Months in Butyrki": "A very important time for me. After three
years of theory and practice, I plunged into literature.
Read all the latest stuff. The Symbolists -- Bely, Balmont. I was
floored by the formal innovation. But it was alien to me. The themess
and images weren't from my life. I tried to write just as well, but
about other things. As it turned out, to write /the same about other
things /was impossible. It came out stilted and snivelutionary.
Something like:
The forests were draped in gold and purple;
On the domes of cathedrals sunlight played.
I waited, but days became lost in months,
Hundreds of wearisome days.
I filled a whole notebook with this stuff. My thanks to the guards
-- they confiscated it from me when I left. Otherwise I might have
published it!"
And the bit, "The Next Night": "During the day, a poem came out of me.
Or rather, pieces of a poem. Bad ones. Unpublished. Night came.
Sretensky Boulevard. I read the lines to Burliuk. Said a friend of a
friend had written them. David stopped. Looked me up and down. Then
bellowed: 'You wrote that yourself! And you, why, you're a brilliant
poet!' The use of such a grandiose and undeserved epithet in reference
to me made me happy. I crossed over to poetry for good. That evening,
completely unexpectedly, I became a poet."
And the bit, "Drafted": "Got called up. By this point I didn't want to
go to the front. Pretended to be a draftsman. Spent my nights with an
engineer, learning to draw blueprints of automobiles. It became even
harder to get published. Soldiers weren't allowed. Only Osip Brik
helped me out. Bought all my poetry for fifty kopecks a line. Printed
'The Backbone Flute' and 'The Cloud.' The cloud came out rather
wispy. The censors had huffed and puffed on it. Six whole pages of dots.
Ever since then I've hated periods. Commas too."
I've begun reading "The Cloud in Pants." Here is a stanza indicating
that Mayakovsky didn't just write propaganda:
Remember
the way you used to talk?
'Jack London,
money,
love,
passion'
But I saw only one thing:
you were a Gioconda
who needed to be stolen!
And you were stolen
And further into the poem:
What do I care for Faust
on his fairy-tale rockets
sliding with Mephistopheles across the heavenly parquet!
I know it well
the nail lodged in my boot
is more of a nightmare than all Goethe's fantasy!
