In this Book
- Selected Poems
- Book
- 2013
- Published by: Northwestern University Press
- Series: Northwestern World Classics
James McGavran’s new translation of Vladimir Mayakovsky’s poetry is the first to fully capture the Futurist and Soviet agitprop artist’s voice. Because of his work as a propagandist for the Soviet regime, and because of his posthumous enshrinement by Stalin as “the best and most talented poet of our Soviet epoch,” Mayakovsky has most often been interpreted—and translated—within a political context. McGavran’s translations reveal a more nuanced poet who possessed a passion for word creation and linguistic manipulation. Mayakovsky’s bombastic metaphors and formal élan shine through in these translations, and McGavran’s commentary provides vital information on Mayakovsky, illuminating the poet’s many references to the Russian literary canon, his contemporaries in art and culture, and Soviet figures and policies.
Table of Contents
- Title Page, Copyright Page
- pp. 2-5
- Acknowledgments
- pp. vii-viii
- Introduction
- pp. ix-xxvi
- About This Edition
- pp. xxvii-xxx
- The Early Years: 1912–1916
- From Street to Street
- pp. 36-37
- Could You?
- pp. 38-69
- The Giant Hell of the City
- pp. 45-76
- Take That!
- pp. 46-77
- They Don’t Understand Anything
- pp. 47-78
- In a Motorcar
- pp. 48-79
- The Fop’s Blouse
- pp. 49-80
- Listen Up!
- pp. 50-51
- But Be That as It May
- pp. 52-83
- Petersburg Again
- pp. 53-84
- Violin and a Bit Nervously
- pp. 56-57
- That’s How I Became a Dog
- pp. 58-59
- Lilichka! In Place of a Letter
- pp. 60-62
- The Years of Upheaval 1917–1920
- Being Good to Horses
- pp. 68-69
- Ode to the Revolution
- pp. 70-71
- An Order to the Army of Art
- pp. 72-73
- It’s Too Early to Rejoice
- pp. 74-75
- The Poet Worker
- pp. 76-77
- An Extraordinary Adventure . . .
- pp. 78-82
- The Soviet Years 1922–1930
- All Meetinged Out
- pp. 85-87
- Schematic of Laughter
- pp. 88-89
- Tamara and the Demon
- pp. 101-106
- A Farewell
- pp. 107-138
- Shallow Philosophy over the Depths
- pp. 108-110
- The Brooklyn Bridge
- pp. 115-120
- To Sergei Yesenin
- pp. 121-127
- Conversation with a Taxman About Poetry
- pp. 128-137
- A Letter to Tatiana Yakovlev
- pp. 138-141
- Lines on a Soviet Passport
- pp. 142-145
- At the Top of My Voice
- pp. 146-153
- Unfinished Lyrics
- pp. 154-185
- The Suicide Note
- pp. 155-156
- Selected Long Poems
- The Cloud in Pants
- pp. 159-184
- The Backbone Flute
- pp. 185-195
- 150,000,000
- pp. 196-247
- The Flying Proletarian
- pp. 259-318
- Bibliography
- pp. 373-374
Additional Information
Copyright
2013