Conversation With An American Writer Poem by Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Conversation With An American Writer

Rating: 2.7


'You have courage, ' they tell me.
It's not true. I was never courageous.
I simply felt it unbecoming
to stoop to the cowardice of my colleagues.

I've shaken no foundations.
I simply mocked at pretense and inflation.
Wrote articles. Scribbled no denunciations.
And tried to speak all on my mind.
Yes, I defended men of talent,
branding the hacks, the would-be writers.
But this, in general, we should always do;
and yet they keep stressing my courage.
Oh, our descendants will burn with bitter shame
to remember, when punishing vile acts,
that most peculiar time, when
plain honesty was labeled 'courage'...

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Susan Williams 15 February 2016

Thank you, Hollie Caskey, for the glimpse of the real man behind the poet. He did indeed live in times when plain honesty was courageous- -dictators loathe honesty

15 0 Reply
Hollie Caskey 21 February 2008

he's such a modest man. i met him once at East Central University when he gave a poetry reading. he never threw his talent around one bit. so it seems typical that he would write such a modest poem.

3 0 Reply
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Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Zima Junction, Siberia
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