"Conversation with An American Writer"
by Yevgeny Yevtushenko
"You have courage,"
they tell me.
It's not true.
I was never courageous.
I simply felt it unbecoming
to stoop to the cowardice of my colleagues.
I've shaken no foundations.
I simply mocked at pretense
and inflation.
Wrote articles.
Scribbled no denunciations.
And tried to speak all
on my mind.
Yes,
I defended men of talent,
branding the hacks,
the would-be writers.
But this, in general, we should always do;
and yet they keep stressing my courage,
Oh, our descendants will burn with bitter
shame
to remember, when punishing vile acts,
that most peculiar
time,
when
plain honesty
was labeled "courage"...
New York, 1961.
From "The Poetry of Yevgeny Yevtushenko" by Yevgeny Yevtushenko. translated by George Reavey.
by Yevgeny Yevtushenko
"You have courage,"
they tell me.
It's not true.
I was never courageous.
I simply felt it unbecoming
to stoop to the cowardice of my colleagues.
I've shaken no foundations.
I simply mocked at pretense
and inflation.
Wrote articles.
Scribbled no denunciations.
And tried to speak all
on my mind.
Yes,
I defended men of talent,
branding the hacks,
the would-be writers.
But this, in general, we should always do;
and yet they keep stressing my courage,
Oh, our descendants will burn with bitter
shame
to remember, when punishing vile acts,
that most peculiar
time,
when
plain honesty
was labeled "courage"...
New York, 1961.
From "The Poetry of Yevgeny Yevtushenko" by Yevgeny Yevtushenko. translated by George Reavey.