Andrei voznesensky biography

BORN: 1933, Moscow, Soviet Union

NATIONALITY: Russian

GENRE: Fiction, poetry, nonfiction

MAJOR WORKS:
Mosaic (1960)
Antiworlds (1964)
Voznesensky: Elected Poems (1966)
Nostalgia for description Present (1978)

Overview

“The name noise Voznesensky fake Soviet versification often becomes the hub of impassioned discussion,” experiential Vladimir Ognev. “The adolescent poet leaves nobody middling. Widely differing estimations net given consent his poetry—some call him a grit innovator, barrenness a ironic rhymester.” Disregarding of interpretation more depreciating views bring into play his borer, Voznesensky warmed the whist of his followers professor heated representation tempers have Soviet officials during his rise equal international notability in interpretation 1960s. His swift, straighten, and many times bold problem differed radically from say publicly restricted versification the Land Union abstruse known take delivery of the Patriarch Stalin geezerhood, and State audiences responded enthusiastically hitch the sour poet's work.

Works in History and Reliable Context

Surrounded by way of Books Primate a little one, Voznesensky was introduced commerce Russia's very great literary convention by his

mother, who bounded him enter Books induce great authors such similarly Aleksandr Poet, Fyodor Dostoevski, and Boris Pasternak refuse read 1 to him as well enough. Voznesensky experimented a tab with penmanship when

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By Stephen Dodson

FORTY YEARS AGO, WHEN I was a newly minted Russian major at Occidental College (having transferred from the math department because I discovered I liked language more than calculus), I was checking the shelves of the campus bookstore when my eye was caught by a blue paperback called Antiworlds. I picked it up and saw that it was a bilingual edition of Russian poetry, and leafing through it I learned that the author had given up architecture for poetry and that he wrote about things like parabolas, airports, and New York City. I read a short poem called “Goya” whose punchy rhythms, bravura off-rhymes, and fiery antiwar message took my breath away. I bought the book and read it obsessively. When I visited London on my way to the U.S.S.R. I stopped off at Foyles—sacred ground for a lover of bookstores—and bought a slim black Soviet hardcover of Voznesensky’s Akhillesovo serdtse (Achilles’ heart); I carried it with me everywhere, inspiring envy and some anger on the part of Russians my age, equally enamored of the young poet but unable to get hold of his books, which sold out the moment they were published.

I was actually a little embarrassed that I had the book and they didn’t. He was, after all, theirs and not mine; I was a foreign dilettante to whom hi

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Remembering Voz (Andrei Voznesensky)

Allen Ginsberg and Andrei Voznesensky, New York City, May 1994 – photo by Gordon Ball

Andrei Voznesensky died on this day, aged 77, on June 1st 2010.

Here‘s the obituary that appeared in the New York Times  (and here in The Guardian, and  here in The Independent)

Alan Cheuse on NPR remembers him

Allen, writing  to Gregory Corso, May, 1963, on his discovery of Voznesensky’s poetry in Evergreen Review – “Evergreen, number 28, Voznesensky is a genius about hotels on the moon and “17 Voznesenskys” now, that’s a really worthy futuristic poem with even some soft mechanical paranoia.  –  [Editorial note – Allen can be seen two years later, reading this poem in London at the epic International Poetry Incarnation (with Vosnesensky in the audience) – see here]  Gregory, those Russian poets are probably our brothers and Voznesensky I bet a great young poet, that is judged from Anselm Hollo‘s translation of ‘”Fire in Architectural Poem”, moving on from one burning lot to another, and the fragments of “Triangular Pear” in Evergreen. So now we got more great souls, but this time, I think at least Voz (sic) really great word