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Satchmo CDs
Best Of Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong /
Louis Armstrong - All-Time Greatest Hits /
The Hot Fives & Sevens
The Definitive Collection /
The Essential Louis Armstrong
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Books by Yevgeny Yevtushenko
Early Poems /
The Collected Poems, 1952-1990 /
Don't Die Before You're Dead /
Twentieth Century Russian Poetry
A Precocious Autobiography /
Ivan The Terrible and Ivan the Fool /
Selected Poems
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Yevtushenko in Satchmo's New Orleans
By Rudolph Lewis
A steady light rain, typically New Orleans, nearly spoiled the Annual
Armstrong Fourth of July Celebration. However, a hundred or so
undaunted souls refused to have their spirits dampened, though
compelled to camp under newspapers and umbrellas, sometimes
hopping and wading through concrete water puddles. They came to
honor the great jazz musician and composer
Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong, and to hear a poetic
tribute to Satchmo by the popular Soviet poet and world literary
figure, Evgeny Evtushenko.
A
local jazz band was playing "When the Saints Go Matching
In" as we arrived at Armstrong Park from the Airport
interview. Evtushenko quickened to the gospel/jazz rhythm, did a
two-step, and moved toward the bandstand, camera cocked. I was
left holding his opened umbrella. Many eyes turned to
Evtushenko, his moving so freely on the bandstand and among the
gathered devotees of Louie's music, camera clicking, taking
pictures of the musicians and dancers. Probably a photographer,
a reporter, or an enthusiastic tourist, many at the gathering
felt, still in the light rain, standing under newspapers,
blankets, or umbrellas. A Negro man, a native of New Orleans,
overcome by the occasion and place, performed the "second
line" in a foot of water under a decorated umbrella. (The
"second line" is a dance done to the swinging upbeat
of a jazz marching band on its return from the cemetery as the
final part of a jazz funeral.) Evtushenko followed him in,
snapping away
Evtushenko
& Louie
The
park was dedicated April 15, 1980, to the memory of Louis
Armstrong, who carried the charm of New Orleans to the
world. The area is known also as Congo Square or Place
Congo, created on the outskirts of the French Quarter,
opposite St. Louis Cathedral and Place D'Armes, now Jackson
Square. George W. Cable, a great New Orleans writer, described
two areas in Century
Magazine (1886) as follows: "One was the highest
ground; the other on the lowest. The one was the rendevous of
the rich man, the master, the military officer--of all that went
to make up the ruling class; the other of the butcher and the
baker, the raftsman, the sailor, the quadroon, the painted girl,
and the Negro slave. . . . The hour (Sunday afternoons) was the
slave's term of momentary liberty, and his simple, savage,
musical and superstitious nature dedicated it to amatory song
and dance with his rude notions of supernatural
influences."
Channel
4 TV newsmen following, Evtushenko visited the statue of Louis
Armstrong by the famous Negro sculptor Elizabeth Catlett, former
art professor at Dillard University, a local private Negro
institution. Evtushenko regretted he had come without flowers,
and so plucked and laid, somewhat appropriately, a yellow
daffodil at the foot of the Armstrong statue. Evtushenko said he
had met Satchmo twice--once in Mexico and again in Europe.
Before leaving, Evtushenko orchestrated a memorable pose for his
camera: two Negro boys from Treme (an impoverished area on the
edge of the park) on each side of the statue's base, astride
their bicycles.
Under
the sheltered threshold of the Municipal Building, part of the
park and frequently used for concerts, we took refuge when the
downpour began. Here Evtushenko read in Russian his poem for
Louis Armstrong to the Channel 4 TV cameras. The Armstrong
poem was first read by translator Albert Todd, professor of
Russian Literature, Queens College. After the reading of the
poem, a representative from the Mayor's Office presented
Evtushenko the city's Merit Award.
Poetry
& the Soviet Union
Although
we all had seen photographs of the Russian poet, none of us
recognized him at his flight's arrival gate. Evtushenko was
dressed casually and looked inconsequential as he chatted with
the wife of Dr. Todd, who had gone in search of the welcoming
party. After the introductions, we all went to the airport's
Delta Crown Room. The TV newsmen had set up their equipment.
Crowded in the small room, Evtushenko moved in behind the table
of microphones and lit a cigarette. Somewhat awkwardly, the TV
newsmen began with questions about the political situation
between the Soviet Union and the United States.
Evtushenko
asked that questions on Soviet policy be put to the new Soviet
leader, Mikhail Gorbachev. "I am an artist," he
explained, "not a politician." To a question about
"terrorism in the air," Evtushenko's response was
similar to President Reagan's, but with a difference. "It's
barbaric action," the poet responded. "But there is a
terror of daily life, such as starvation. I am against any kind
of terrorism. We must not overlook these other kinds of
terror."
"We
need to develop a cultural exchange," Evtushenko added.
"Americans know very little about Russian life and culture.
It is in cultural artifacts that we find the souls of the
people. Americans need to know more. There are so many Russian
writers not published in America."
According
to Evtushenko, cultural relations should be emphasized more than
the political and military. "The Russian people love
Americans. We are both children of the big spaces. Our souls
speak between another. You must remember we took a common stand
against fascism. It was the honeymoon. I remember seeing
Americans in the Moscow crowd. I have a good memory of the
honeymoon. I want it to be resurrected."
Evtushenko
expressed his amazement at the efforts to dissuade him from his
desire to read his poetry at a steel mill in Buffalo, New York.
"It is not uncommon in the Soviet Union," the poet
explained, "for tens of thousands of factory workers to
come to hear Russian poets. One does not need to be educated to
love poetry. Poetry is not disconnected from suffering. You
know, the reader of poetry is great artist. There is a magic
order of words. American intellectuals are lazy," he
concluded. "They do not educate the workers to love
poetry."
In
response to reservations about himself because he had not been
intimidated or confined like Solzenitsyn or Sarkarov, Evtuhsenko
said: "Government is part of society. All criticism is of
the confessional genre. You criticize the government, you
criticize yourself. One must have courage to criticize oneself.
Remember we are journalists of eternity. Ours is a spiritual
newspaper."
"Positive
changes are taking place in Soviet life, contrary to American
understanding," according to Evtushenko. "What has
been happening in the Soviet Union since 1953 is a spiritual
revolution, one which subjects us to great tensions and which
demands of us great patience. Dogmatists used, still use, and
will go on using every opportunity they can to arrest the
process of democratization of our country."
"I
am here in defense of Mother Earth," continued the Russian
poet. "The concept, as I understand it, embraces not just
trees and animals but people." He said he had received a
special pleasure in his travels. "In every country, I
looked for men who were prepared to fight heart and soul against
lies, the abuse of power, and the exploitation of man by man
wherever they exist. And everywhere I found such men."
Soiree
at Lee's Palace
Evtushenko
was soaked from head to toe when we left Armstrong Park. We
stopped by my Marigny apartment for dry clothes. I offered
Evtushenko a shirt and shoes, but they were too small for his
large, lanky frame. Finally, he settled for Indian-made sandals,
long converted into flip-flops. Still in good humor, Evtushenko
quipped, as we got out of Marty O'Farrell's van at Lesseps
Street, "Ahh, this is Lee's Winter Palace."
Though
subject to possible social ostracism for harboring a
"Commie," Lee and Reggie Grue felt honored. They
hosted that evening a party for Evtushenko at their Lesseps
Street home. As reported by the Times-Picayune's Society page, the theme was Literature a la Russe. Evtushenko's visit to New Orleans and the
party were sponsored by the New Orleans Poetry Forum and Bridges
for Peace. Evtushenko began to enjoy himself truly at Lee's,
even though there were moments when some people wanted him to be
more than a writer--some sort of foreign minister who was going
to transform pervasive political evil into sweetness and light.
Evtushenko, however, would probably like nothing more than to
write and be judged on how well rather than on what he wrote. At
the party, he was with a group of people who took him in that
way, and he expanded wonderfully and visibly. By surprise, he
spoke approvingly of Audrey Hepburn movies.
Local
writers, including Yusef Komunyakaa, Tom Bonner, Kenneth
Holditch, Peter Cooley, and Martha McFerren, felt fortunate to
talk with Russia's most popular poet. Helen Parnell, a member of
Bridges for Peace, was photographed by the local paper chatting
with Evtushenko, as he autographed a copy of his novel Wild
Berries, written soon after his divorce when he was
"very close to suicide."
A
Public Reading Uptown
At
Newcombe Chapel, Friday, July 5, 1985, Evtushenko's performance
was truly extraordinary. His manner of reading startled many,
which was unlike the typical cool, monotone reading of academic
poets as they stand uneasily behind a podium. Evtushenko
interpreted with every fiber of his body the nuances of his
Russian-written poems, by dramatic gestures and movement in and
out of the assembled audience. At one moment, he would declaim
sonorously righteous indignation, and the next, coo convincingly
to move the reluctant toward conviction and action.
In
English, Evtushenko recited "Babi
Yar," the celebrated and controversial poem written in
1961. The poem recalls in 62 lines the massacre of more than
100,000 people, half of them Jews, murdered by Nazis during the
German occupation of Kiev between 1941 and 1943 and buried in a
ravine called Babi Yar. The reading of the poem received a
standing ovation. Though some consider "Babi Yar" his
best poem, Evtushenko prefers "Weddings."
After
the Newcombe Chapel recital, Evtushenko spent an hour chatting
with members of his admiring audience at a reception. He looked
haggard. With his coat across his left arm, Evtushenko, after
two days in New Orleans, was still meeting and greeting
strangers cordially, shaking hands and trying to respond to
questions, which were sometimes idiotic. Faces were beginning to
melt together. I walked near him, but he did not recognize me.
Evtushenko thought I was still another wanting to shake the hand
of the Soviet celebrity.
First published in The New
Laurel Review, Vol. XV (Spring/Fall 1987), ed. Lee M. Grue
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updated 28 December 2008 |
