"This is what's happening to me"

“The poet in Russia is more than a poet” – these lines from the poem by Yevgeny Alexandrovich Yevtushenko, the renowned “Thaw” poet, could serve as an epigraph to his body of work. A rebel, dreamer, orator, and tribune, he glorified poetry that threw itself “into the fray of the streets,” and was one of those whose work offered a breath of freedom to many. Few have enjoyed as much fame during their lifetime as Yevtushenko. He filled arenas with thousands of spectators, mesmerizing his audience with his emotional intensity and overflowing energy. In his poetry, Yevtushenko found the tone and the words that made him the voice of an entire era and transformed his lyric poetry into a “diary of the century.” Today, Yevtushenko is known worldwide, his works have been translated into more than seventy languages, and dozens of songs have been written to his poems (“Do Russians Want War?”, “This Is What Happens to Me…”, “The Alder Branch,” “And the Snow Will Fall, Fall…,” “God Grant It!”, and others). This edition includes selected poems by E. Yevtushenko, written at different stages of his life.