Vladimir Mayakovsky — "Poet-Laborer" / Владимир Маяковский — "Поэт Рабочий"

#Mayakovsky #Маяковкий "Poet-Laborer" (1918) by the great soviet poet, Vladimir Mayakovsky. Read by Daniil Ashtaev in Brooklyn, NY in the summer of 2019. Full poem in English below. / Владимир Маяковский, "Поэт Рабочий" (1918) Читает Даниил Аштаев. Бруклин, Нью-Йорк, лето 2019 года. / "Poet-Laborer" The crowd’s yelling at the poet: “How we’d like to see you by the lathe. What’s with the lyrics? There’s nothing to it! No guts for work — to labor you’re not rathe.” Maybe, to us labor Is not at all at odds. I am a factory, too. and if without the smoke stacks, then, maybe, Their lack Makes for tougher jobs. I know — idle phrases make you ache. Hewing the oak — for labor’s sake. And we — Aren’t we woodworkers? But with people’s heads’ stumps at stake. Of course, it’s an honored endeavor — to trawl. Pull out the net. Full of sturgeon, I wish! But the poet’s work is a different call — to capture people breathing, and not fish. Enormous work — to blaze over the furnace, hurling sizzling iron with your arms’ tongs. But who’s to reproach us for loafing? Grinding the brains with the rasps of our tongues. Who’s nobler — the poet, or the engineer, who leads the people to material wealth? Both. The hearts — motors just the same. The soul — same contrived engine. We’re equal. Fellows in the working mass. Proletarians of the body and spirit. Only as one will we adorn this universe and go on marching with it. Let’s set a breakwater to this verbal storm. To action! The work is alive and new. As to the idling orators — Let them mill! Grind wheat and corn! Spinning the grindstone with cascades of ado. Vladimir Mayakovsky 1918 Translated by Daniil Ashtaev, 2019