{"id":1837,"date":"2019-10-19T22:00:49","date_gmt":"2019-10-20T02:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/?p=1837"},"modified":"2020-01-10T22:20:47","modified_gmt":"2020-01-11T02:20:47","slug":"feature-he-was-goya-andrei-voznesenski-in-minneapolis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/2019\/10\/19\/feature-he-was-goya-andrei-voznesenski-in-minneapolis\/","title":{"rendered":"Weekly Feature | HE WAS GOYA: Andrei Voznesenski in Minneapolis"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Mike Finley<\/a><\/em><\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

White American poets don\u2019t have great credibility in protest. <\/span>
\nWe come across as privileged.<\/span>
\nI saw a poet do it right, March 19, 1971. <\/span>
\nRussian, Andrei Voznesenski. Prot\u00e9g\u00e9 of Boris Pasternak.<\/span>
\nIn the 1960s he was as big as the Beatles in the USSR<\/span>
\nbecause he embodied the rage of Soviet youth. <\/span>
\n(He wrote a book with a Beatles title, Rubber Souls.)<\/span>
\nKruschev personally asked Voznesensky, to his face, <\/span>
\nto obtain a passport and get the hell out of Russia. <\/span>
\nHe was that unbearable. <\/span>
\nHe filled stadiums with electricity and charisma, <\/span>
\nand often, as in his great poem to Goya, <\/span>
\nthe Spanish painter and critic, <\/span>
\nhe swung his arm like a steel-driving man. <\/span>
\nLub dub, lub dub. <\/span>
\nOne critic said that he along with Yevtushenko<\/span>
\nwere the first poets to write for the stage, not the page, <\/span>
\nmaking them the first slam poets.<\/span>
\nI met Andrei Voznesensky, and this is our story.<\/span><\/p>\n

With less than a day’s notice, the KGB<\/span>
\ngave Siberian poet Andrej Vosnesenski a visa<\/span>
\nto fly to Minnesota.<\/span>
\nThere was no time to promote the event. <\/span>
\nA handful of writers and scholars and a few Soviet emigr\u00e9s<\/span>
\ncluster in the front rows of the roped off-Northrop Auditorium, <\/span>
\na mere 50 people dotting the 5,000 seats<\/span>
\nwhile, standing like a speck upon the giant stage, <\/span>
\nThe poet groans and raises his fist like a steal sledge,<\/span>
\npoised to come down hard.<\/span>
\nwhile, standing like a speck upon the giant stage, <\/span>
\nthe poet groans and raises his fist like a steel sledge, <\/span>
\npoised to come down hard.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

He reads his poem about Goya, Spanish painter of the<\/span>
\npost-Napoleonic years, <\/span>
\nregarded as the last of the old masters and the first<\/span>
\nof the new revolutionaries, nailing the establishment<\/span>
\nfor their heartless offenses. <\/span><\/p>\n

An English actor translates V\u2019s words, but no one<\/span>
\nlistens to that blow-dried fop. <\/span>
\nAll eyes are on the pumping hand, all ears attuned to<\/span>
\nVoznesenski’s condemnation of tyrants. <\/span>
\nNo one understands, and yet everyone understands. <\/span>
\nAnd as he moves into action, one word thunders<\/span>
\nthrough the auditorium — GOYA!<\/span>
\nGOYA reanimates the frozen corpses of the field. <\/span>
\nGOYA baptizes you with the blood of your victims. <\/span>
\nThe dashed, the dead, the unblinking eyes. <\/span>
\nGOYA stands against the blistering fire, <\/span>
\naccosting you with your terrible crimes. <\/span>
\nGOYA slams the hammer that cracks the rock.<\/span>
\nGOYA swings the scythe that mows the grain. <\/span><\/p>\n

Even when all the words against you are shredded, <\/span>
\neven when the books have made a roaring fire, <\/span>
\nthe lies that murdered millions come back on you. <\/span><\/p>\n

GOYA is implacable against the barrels of rifles. <\/span>
\nGOYA sees you for what you are. <\/span>
\nGOYA stabs with his unforgiving truth. <\/span>
\nGOYA announces that the day is over<\/span>
\nwhere the whited dead cry out for justice. <\/span>
\nYou mighty leaders have not prevailed. <\/span>
\nYou are vanquished by your deeds. <\/span>
\nYour generations are sown with lime. <\/span>
\nYou have not won, you are dead and you don’t know. <\/span><\/p>\n

GOYA!<\/span><\/p>\n

Afterward the reading breaks up and the poets and professors<\/span>
\ndrive through the snow and ice to Chester Anderson’s house<\/span>
\nto boast and jostle and drink, <\/span>
\nVoznesenski alone at the end of the couch with a shy, <\/span>
\npuzzled frown on his face. <\/span>
\nSeveral beers later, I take to the bathroom, <\/span>
\nwhere Chester’s golden retriever lies on a pink poof rug.<\/span>
\nI step over the dog to pee. <\/span>
\nBehind me, Voznesenski creeps into the room<\/span>
\nAnd kneels by the dog on the pink poof rug, <\/span>
\na foot from the stream splashing against the porcelain lip. <\/span>
\nHe scratches the dogs ears and smiles seraphically<\/span>
\nHis two eyes closed, his face held out, <\/span>
\nthe dew alighting like communion from God<\/span>
\non his face, as if finally \u2013 FINALLY free!<\/span><\/p>\n

There is a postscript to this story. <\/span>
\nVoznesenski in 1971 was the conquering poet, <\/span>
\npoised to obliterate the world. The USSR would fall to Goya. <\/span>
\nThe West would follow suit. <\/span>
\nThat night in Golden Valley may have been his high point, <\/span>
\nworshiped in America. But it wasn\u2019t what<\/span>
\nhis soul cried out for — obliteration. <\/span>
\nThe teenager who amazed Pasternak and offended Khruschev, <\/span>
\nwho consorted with Olivier, Ginsberg, Robert Lowell, <\/span>
\nArthur Miller, and Marilyn Monroe, pulled back. <\/span>
\nHe declined into middle age, then withered even further. <\/span>
\nVoznesensky became a recluse. <\/span>
\nHe taught at a remote regional university. <\/span>
\nHe suffered a a series of strokes, succumbing at 77. <\/span>
\nNo cause of death was given.<\/span><\/p>\n

It may be that America proved no solution to the enslavement<\/span>
\nof the Soviet Union. He pulled back, held in check<\/span>
\nby reality, unable to fulfill the promises of his youth.<\/span>
\nIn the end, there was only the earth — for him, no truly free<\/span>
\nplanet to escape to. Like Goya, he was swallowed up by reality.<\/span>
\nInstead of claiming what was his, <\/span>
\nVoznesenski withered on the vine. <\/span>
\nHe no longer set the planet on fire. <\/span>
\nHis later books were admirable but did not make the earth<\/span>
\ntremble. Goya was no longer young. <\/span>
\nYou could almost see the hammer falling from his hand.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
Mike Finley has been towing the line in subversive poetry for going on 55 years. He learned at the hands of James Wright, May Sarton, Allen Ginsberg and Robert Bly. He lives in St Paul, Minnesota, where he has end-stage cancer.<\/em><\/h5>\n
Author’s note & inspiration: Pasternak was the mentor to my guy, Andrei Voznesenski.\u00a0\u00a0“5 Russian writers who won the Nobel Prize<\/a>,” by Alexandra Guzeva, Russia Beyond, October 11, 2019.\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/h5>\n
<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Author’s note & inspiration: Pasternak was the mentor to my guy, Andrei Voznesenski.\u00a0\u00a0“5 Russian writers who won the Nobel Prize,” by Alexandra Guzeva, Russia Beyond, October 11, 2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1866,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,181,177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-weekly-feature","category-global-issues","category-humanity-of-it-all"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Poet-Voznesenski.jpg?fit=530%2C537&ssl=1","post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1837"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4230,"href":"https:\/\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1837\/revisions\/4230"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}