Yevgeny Yevtushenko: Poem

Yevgeny Yevtushenko was Russian poet, film director, teacher. Explore interesting quotes on poem.

Yevgeny Yevtushenko: 34 quotes 2 likes

“I was overjoyed when I read Yevtushenko's "Babi Yar"; the poem astounded me. It astounded thousands of people…People knew about Babi Yar before Yevtushenko's poem, but they were silent. And when they read the poem, the silence was broken. Art destroys silence.”

Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Solomon Volkov (ed.), Testimony: The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich (New York: Limelight, 2006) pp. 158-9.
Criticism

People , Art , Silence , Reading

“[I] do not like poems that resemble hay compressed into a geometrically perfect cube. I like it when the hay, unkempt, uncombed, with dry berries mixed in it, thrown together gaily and freely, bounces along atop some truck—and more, if there are some lovely and healthy lasses atop the hay—and better yet if the branches catch at the hay, and some of it tumbles to the road.”

Yevgeny Yevtushenko

New York Times (2 February 1986).

Love , Perfection

“He has a clear style and has had much courage – as in his poem "Babi Yar", a memorial to the Jews murdered by the Nazis. But he is no more than a talented poetaster – which is quite obvious to all but Western journalists – and it would be foolish to consider him as more than a skilful publicist.”

Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Martin Seymour-Smith, Guide to Modern World Literature (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1975) vol. 4, pp. 240-1.
Criticism

Courage , Memory , Baby