Soviet poet gives campus reading

Acclaimed poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko read from Silver and Steel, an anthology of Russian poems, before a group of about 50 in Stiteler Hall Thursday. In the former Soviet Union, Yevtushenko was branded a dissident for his writings and his opposition to his country's invasions of Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan. Later, Yevtushenko became a revered figure in Russia, capable of packing soccer stadiums when he read poetry. On Yevtushenko's 60th birthday, he received a letter from Russian President Boris Yeltsin, praising him for his contributions to poetry and to the Russian people. In introducing Yevtushenko Thursday, College Dean Matthew Santirocco said the poet "opposed the values of [the Soviet system] and all other oppressive systems." "[Yevtushenko] paved the way for the momentous change in his country," he said. Yevtushenko first came to the United States in 1964, when he met Albert Todd, who became his friend and later the editor of his anthology of Russian poetry. Todd, a professor at Queens College, started Yevtushenko on his first tour of the U.S. as a poetry reader that year. Yevtushenko began his reading yesterday with a folk poem and a poem written by his father. Moving on to love, Yevtushenko read poems by Pasternak and Mayakovsky. Changing gears, Yevtushenko read poems by Blok and Manderstam that dealt with politics. He closed with two of his own poems, including Goodbye, Our Red Flag, which dealt with the collapse of communism. Yevtushenko said he chose to read poems covering very different topics because he thinks "the reading of poetry has to be a reflection of life." His anthology also includes poems dealing with a wide variety of issues. "[The anthology is] the first time that anyone's taken the time to collect an entire collection of 20th century Russian poetry without a political point of view," said Bradley Jordan, who received his doctorate in comparative literature from the University this year. Jordan read English translations of most of the poems Yevtushenko read in Russian. Todd read English versions of the others. During his reading, Yevtushenko's animation and style kept the audience interested, even though he only read a few of his poems in English. "As a reader, he is without parallel," Todd said. "People hear it. People understand it. People remember it."