[lbo-talk] Poetry in the New Yorker

[joanna]

I thought the New Yorker was incapable of printing a good poem, but I 
was wrong. Here's one from this week. Chris will tell us how good a 
translation it is. I think it would be better if "Gypsies" were not 
capitalized.

To Anna Akhmatova

I sent you a rose in a glass of champagne
while the Gypsies played as the Gypsies do.
Then you turned to the man you were with and said,
"You see his eyes? He's in love with me too."

That night you left me a look in the mirror--
a look I've had too much of.
And the Gypsy singer kept jangling her bracelets
and singing of love, and of love, and of love.

             Alexander Blok

          (translated by Paul Schmidt)