Jackie,

That's a great story about the Finance Minister. And what you say about the
Russian poets' style and galmour is really spot-on. I think of
Dragomoshchenko or Parshchikov, or Zhdanov, for example-- a deep, unaffected
dignity there, a kind of regal bearing, completely comfortable, and which
had the effect of making oneself feel rather dignified in turn (especially
while drinking vodka, of which there was not yet a serious shortage while we
were there, thankfully).

Are you familiar with the semi-annual conferences on Russian poetry held in
New Jersey by Ed Foster of Talisman Press? There have been three, I think.
Each time, some of the Russian poets come over, including a number of the
people on our lists. Henry Gould wrote an interesting essay in Witz about
the first gathering (I believe it's available on the web, Henry?); you might
want to contact Foster on the next one-- why shouldn't it be a Russian-US-UK
poets conference?

Kent

>From: Jackie Litherland <[log in to unmask]>
>To: <[log in to unmask]>, Kent Johnson <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: Third Wave & Russian Sea Gulls
>Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2000 00:11:03 +0000
>
>Dear Kent,
>
>Iron Press's list is as follows: Bella Akhmadulina, Nizametdin Akhmetov,
>Gennady Aygi, Tatiana Bek, Joseph Brodsky, Oleg Chukhontsev, Yuri Cobrin,
>Vladimir Druk, Veronica Dolina, Mikhail Eisenberg, Sergei Gandlevsky,
>Polina
>Ivanova, Timur Kibirov, Oleg Klebnikov, Vladimir Kostrov, Victor Koval,
>Victor Krivulin, Vyacheslav Kuprianov, Tatiana Kuzovleva, Yusus
>Matzavichus,
>Yunna Moritz, Olesia Nikolayeva, Denis Novikov, Bulat Okhudzhava, Dmitri
>Prigov, Lev Rubenshtein, Gennady Rusakov, Vladimir Saveliev, Olga Sedakova,
>Ekaterina Shevelyova, Elena Shvarts, Boris Slutsky, Larisa Vasilieva,
>Andrei
>Voznesensky, Yevgeny Yevtushenko.
>
>As you see, strange bedfellows. Third Wave appears to me to be a
>complementary book to The Poetry of Perestroika, picking up on the
>avant-garde set and concentrating on their work. Even so, there are always
>exclusions, as you note.
>
>In the spirit of glasnost, we wanted to include as much variety as
>possible,
>the old official lyrical/ballad style of composition was under attack from
>all quarters.
>
>They were heady times! In 1991 there was Vodka rationing in Russia, so
>Peter
>Mortimer and I were advised to buy vodka as currency in exchange for food.
>We had shadowy meetings under dark railway arches to get our clinking
>currency. We met the Almanac crowd again in Eisenberg's flat (handing out
>our tenners with our Vodka surplus), where an impromptu party began (I say
>began, because half way through it suddenly decamped to cross Moscow to the
>flat - I think - of Sergei Gandlevsky.) Numerous toasts insisted that we
>drink our vodka tots straight down (not to do so was an insult). Plates of
>potatoes and fish (produced by wives, I was sad to note) kept the party
>from
>drunkenness. However it didn't stop one partygoer, who insisted he was the
>Economics Minister from the Government, from saying he was going give up
>his
>job to devote himself to poetry. This proclaimed with vodka Hurrahs. He
>offered Peter and I a lift home in his official car, which had a mysterious
>change-over of chauffeurs in an icy Moscow backstreet at 4 a.m. (end of
>shift, was the shrugged explanation). We thought, no, he's some minor
>official tired of work. When we got home to England his resignation was
>headline news.
>
>Iron Press organised an exchange visit to bring Shvarts, Prigov and Druk to
>the North-East of England in 1992. They toured the region for about a
>fortnight. Among the readings was one at Morden Tower, Newcastle, where
>Neil
>Astley picked up on Elena Shvarts, eventually bringing out a dual language
>collection of hers, Paradise in 1993.
>
>My abiding impression of Russia was a romantic country where gesture was
>supremely important. This seemed to purvey every system that might be
>operating. Soviet Communism needed that mystical element, described by
>Mikhail Epstein, to survive. When it was sacrificed to realpolitik, it was
>doomed. Honour, romance, courtliness, panache, these were prized. Again
>that
>odd word glamour comes to mind. Not the glamour of money (if it has any)
>but
>the glamour of drama, of the theatrical moment enhancing life which the
>Russians seem to enjoy cultivating. If the current Russian climate crushes
>that in its search for gold, then it will have destroyed its most precious
>possession. The Russian poets I met were intoxicating (and maybe at times
>intoxicated) and lived with a heightened style of aplomb which was very
>attractive to us Brits.
>
>Jackie
>
>If you let me have your address you can have a Crimbo present of our book.
>

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