Dude, you want me to explain the difference between an orgasm and an attack of asthma. It’s impossible but I’ll try.
Read the following lines. Breathe them in, inhabit them, say them slowly out loud:
Словно тёмную воду, я пью помутившийся воздух.
Время вспахано плугом, и роза землёю была.
В медленном водовороте тяжёлые нежные розы,
Розы тяжесть и нежность в двойные венки заплела!
I mean, talking about orgasm. This is what “в медленном водовороте” is transmitting without remotely naming it. Just say it aloud: “В медленном водовороте тяжёлые нежные розы”. Right? People who don’t know a word of Russian break out in sweat when I recite it. Not a single time did anybody fail to figure out from recitation alone that it’s an erotic poem that has zero words of eroticism. It’s in the meter, in the way words are arranged. You’ll have to draw in breath to be able to say “в медленном водовороте”. So the poem has you gasping whether you want to or not. The poet is stepping out of the verse and making you do things in reality by the power of his craft. He’s been dead for going on a century and he still is present in our very breath.
Or this:
И море, и Гомер — всё движется любовью.
Кого же слушать мне? И вот Гомер молчит,
И море черное, витийствуя, шумит
И с тяжким грохотом подходит к изголовью.
If you can’t hear the sea waves crashing against the bedpost in the last verse, then I give up.
And now let’s look at the poem that cost Mandelshtam his life:
Его толстые пальцы, как черви, жирны,
А слова, как пудовые гири, верны,
Тараканьи смеются усища,
И сияют его голенища.
Primitive rhymes, shallow imagery, childish vocabulary. “Жирны-верны” is out there with “розы-морозы”. It’s an insult to poetry. “Усища” is child speak.
To remove the aftertaste from this bleh poem, one more quote from Mandelshtam’s real poetry:
Кто время целовал в измученное темя, —
С сыновьей нежностью потом
Он будет вспоминать, как спать ложилось время
В сугроб пшеничный за окном.
You can spend the rest of your life feeding on the beauty of these lines and still gasp for air, crushed by the weight of their meaning. I think about these lines often. They have changed the very fabric of who I am.
Clarissa's Blog 
Good evening. Thanks for your reply. I guess I took your earlier statement about Mandelshtam too literally. I thought you meant “Every single other poem by Mandelshtam is ‘talented;’ this one poem alone is not.” And I wanted to know if there was some criterion by which anyone could be governed so as to be certain, without the slightest doubt, for all time and eternity, which side of the line any given poem was on.
For example, I thought maybe something like “Нежнее нежного” (included below for readers’ reference) might not be subject to unanimous categorization, if “talented” and “untalented” are the categories.
I feel like this comment may sound tonally different than I intend it, so please let me state explicitly that I appreciate the reply and am saying this only to clarify my intention in asking the question.
Нежнее нежного
Лицо твое,
Белее белого
Твоя рука,
От мира целого
Ты далека,
И все твое —
От неизбежного.
От неизбежного
Твоя печаль,
И пальцы рук
Неостывающих,
И тихий звук
Неунывающих
Речей,
И даль
Твоих очей.
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This is a talented poem. Look at the number of syllables in each line. The poet is playing with rhythm, weaving from long to short and back. Especially in the closing verses you can see it. Seemingly simple but doing this with the rhythm isn’t easy. This is pure modernism where form is everything.
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well I don’t even know how to say any of the lines you’ve shared but I love your description!
how do I explain to a 14yo boy who is complaining it is stupid, why we read poetry? Specifically “Idylls of the King” by Alfred Lord Tennyson?
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It is intriguing to read your description of the beauty of these poems. Not being able to understand them is frustrating!
I tried to find German translations of Mandelshtam and found one poem that I liked even in translation. (Where he compares himself to a shell lying at the seashore). Makes me think about how much beautiful poetry I miss by only reading 2-3 languages well.
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Dear Clarissa, now I need you to write a book Mandel’shtam’s poetry. Nothing grandiose: you choose 20-30 of your favourites poems, text in the original Russian followed by a literal translation and then your stylistic, literary, historical and psychological interpretation of the poem.
Promise you’ll think about it? I’m sure there is a market for it and Yale UP or any of the major academic presses would love to hear your proposal.
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Why nothing grandiose? I can be grandiose. 😜
Here’s the plan for books. First, I finish Neoliberal Love. It will be with a publisher (I’m thinking Liverpool UP) by the end of 2025. Then I’ll write a book about Ukrainian writers who write in Spanish. I already have three, 2 in Spain and 1 in Argentina. One more, and it’s enough for a book.
After that, I’ll see how I feel about writing anything where the word neoliberalism can’t be used. 😆😆😆
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I put first paragraph into google translate:
Like dark water, I drink the clouded air. Time was plowed by the plow, and the rose was the earth. In a slow whirlpool there are heavy tender roses, Weaved roses with heaviness and tenderness into double wreaths!
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Is it possible Mandelshtam felt Stalin was not deserving of a better poem?
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We’ll never know but we also don’t have to care. The poem is bad. What does it matter why it’s bad?
He died for a bad poem, which is such a waste.
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