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Sergei Esenin — Fifteen Poems (1910–1911)

The first fifteen lyric poems of Sergei Esenin, written in 1910–1911 when the poet was fifteen and sixteen — the school-notebook beginnings of one of Russia's most beloved lyric voices. Evening dew on the nettles and birches standing like candles; winter singing to the sparrows at the frozen window; the bird cherry scattering its blossom like snow; pilgrims walking the villages; a lost ring, a faithless lad, and Tanyusha, fairest in the village; stars questioned in the night; and an old man on the stove remembering his youth while the blizzard howls at the gate.

The fifteen poems, in order: «Вот уж вечер. Роса» (Evening Has Come. The Dew), «Там, где капустные грядки» (Where the Cabbage Beds Are), «Поёт зима — аукает» (Winter Sings — Calls Out), «Подражанье песне» (Imitation of a Song), «Выткался на озере алый свет зари» (The Scarlet Light of Dawn Wove Itself over the Lake), «Дымом половодье» (The Flood in Smoke), «Сыплет черёмуха снегом» (The Bird Cherry Scatters Snow), «Калики» (The Pilgrims), «Поэт» (The Poet), «Под венком лесной ромашки» (Beneath a Wreath of Woodland Camomile), «Тёмна ноченька, не спится» (The Night Is Dark, I Cannot Sleep), «Хороша была Танюша, краше не было в селе» (Tanyusha Was Fair), «Звёзды» (Stars), «И. Д. Рудинскому» (To I. D. Rudinsky), and «Воспоминание» (Remembrance) — by Sergei Esenin, in new English verse translations made for this show, read aloud over a gentle instrumental bed.

Esenin.

Intermission: "upload-10" — instrumental.

KacheliTV — Russian classics, read aloud.