Yaroslav Smelyakov
Talking of Poetry

In an offhand, uppish way, you said to me
You had four hundred poems about love,
While I — too bad! — had only two or three,
By any standards, plainly not enough.

Yes, all my talent, you went on to add,
(Not insignificant, to judge by the reviews)
Was wasted on all sorts of civic fads —
Rhymed comments to the flow of daily news.

The sum of what you said amounts, in fact,
To stating — and you spared no pains to show it —
That I was just a potboiler and hack
And you the genuine, one and only master-poet.

Ah, well, there's something to it, I confess.
Among the humdrum stuff in girlish albums—
Ever so intimate — you’ll hardly find, I guess
A line of mine, unpolished, crude and callous.

And hardly, coyly opening his lips
When wineglasses and records stop their din,
Will any bald-pate at a party, between sips,
Deign to select a piece of mine to sing.

No, god forbid! There’s no offence at all.
It’s not without regret that I admit:
For playing such a literary role
Y. Smelyakov is perfectly unfit.

It’s not for me to write on themes like the above.
I gladly leave it to the younger geneiation,
Preferring subjects not concerned with love;
My poems have a different destination.

The only theme that really drew my soul,
That made me take a pen into my hand
Were the events and facts, both great and small
That make up life in mine and other lands.

It isn’t very much that I’ve composed,
Not all I wrote was really a success.
I am a rank-and-filer, I suppose,
A daily drudger for the radio and press.

Yet all in all, I've been in luck through life,
Known it quite well, in big and small partaking
And so I like my job because it’s like
Partly, at least — the job of history-making.

Translated by Dorian Rottenberg