What an amazing evening! The Lit Kicks Spring Peace Poetry Happening was thrown together at the last minute when Bob Holman suddenly got the go-ahead from NY city officials, in early April, to open his great new Bowery Poetry Club, which is going to be a really major new part of the East Village scene now that Bob has finally got the place off the ground. If you’re in NY City and you haven’t been there, do check it out — it’s …

In 1952, John Clellon Holmes wrote an article for The New York Times Magazine entitled “This is the Beat Generation.” In it, he defined, explained and, to a large extent, justified what older people saw as the “moral degeneration” of the postwar generation. This “Beat Generation” took their name from the a group of young writers and poets (such as Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac) who rejected the highly-structured literature of the American academy and took as their hero the …

Among the top poets in Chinese history resides Li Po.

In pre-modern times, he raised poetry to levels of expressiveness and impact never before reached. Unlike other great Chinese poets such as Tu Fu, Li Po’s work gained immediate attention. The main reason for this is that Li Po was not an innovator; he took the classic form, the form that was familiar, and raised it another level with an unparalleled grace and eloquence.

The main themes or characteristics of Li Po’s large body of …

Believed to be compiled by Confucius, Shih ching or “Book of Odes” is a collection of 305 poems, dating from 1000 to 600 BC. These are believed to be the oldest existing examples of Chinese poetry.

The collection includes refined folk songs, ritualistic poems, dynastic legends and hymns for ancestral temples. All were intended to be sung, although the musical accompaniments are long lost. The subject matter centers on daily activities such as farming, gathering plants, farming, courting, feasting and going to war. The imagery is …

In the life and history of the Chinese people, nothing is more tightly woven into their culture than poetry.

Composed by emperors and scholar-officials as well as peasants and farmers, poetry was the means by which they expressed their happiness and sadness, political anger and courtship.

Chinese poetry dates back to the Hsia dynasty (2205 BC), however the first known anthology of Chinese poetry date back to 600 BC. Chinese poetry, much like Japanese poetry, has gained wider popularity in the West over the recent …

�Wives be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He the head of the church, He Himself being the savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything.� The book Ephesians in the Christian bible makes it quite clear that women are …

FAR AWAY LANDS

I’ll sit down on a very white horse
During a yellow-green sunset in Fall . . .
Quietly touch on the new fallen snow,
Write to me in West, I’ll be happier there.

Slowly I’ll ride through the Ural mountains,
Gallop through the Volga,
Splash through the Don.
I’ll gallop through Poland,
Gravely and sternly.
I’ll turn to the South
Where they painted Madonna’s.

Like a brave hidalgo in a mindless joy
I’ll whistle on top of a windmill in La Mancha.
In Marseilles the hotels will gleam …

THE BEGINNING

Maria the Nurse

What did I say to Maria the nurse
when I was hugging her?
“You know that officer’s daughters
don’t look on us soldiers.”

And the field of clovers was beneath us
quite like the river.
And the waves of the clovers became higher
and we swayed upon them.

And Maria, opening her arms,
swam down the river.
And black and eternal
were her light-blue eyes.

And when sunrise arrived
I told Maria
“No, imagine that officer’s daughters
don’t wish to look at us.”

- 1950s Bulat Okudzhava

1924 was a terrible year for Russia and …

Soviet Literature 1950 – 2002
The Bard Generation

Preface

Here I have written the history of Russian literature, mainly poetry or song that was underground for some time in the Soviet Union. It centers on the movement that started in the late fifties and became big in the early sixties – the bard, or guitar-poetry movement. The people that came out of this movement have changed the idea of Russian poetry, song, and style. Yevgeny Yevtushenko, internationally recognized as a great Russian …