Hilda Doolittle or H.D.
  was a well-known poet...
I'm not.
  So what?
When time came
  I used her poem
"Winter love"
   for my own...*

Far above 
     was something
  that we both could feel,
bridging the time - 
  an almost 100 years gap,
which poetry could overlap...

"How could I love again, ever..."

I'm quoting her,
   not myself.

She was a modernist...

When I began 
 to write in English
  I was 19...
I lived 
     in a closed country
  having no idea
of blank verse,
  although
the whole
  English speaking world
     was using it...

People put 
    me to shame:
  "How can you write in English!
Are you Nabokov???!!!"
  Of course, I not.
I was and am Slowboat.

"Nabokov,
   Slobodkina,
    Brodsky -
three steps of modernism..."

Now I'm quoting myself...
  
I shouldn't have listened to them!

But I went on and on -
  writing in both
English and Russian...

And now I see
  girls from Belorussia
who teach American Uiversities
  and write in 3 languages,
translating in 4...,
  or even more...

You must have the courage
  to declare yourself a poet
or an artist
  and not to listen to mediocre
phisiltine minds....

Now I'm mature enough
  not to listen to anyone 
who utters rubbish...

But time...

How can I publish
  all my 10, 000 poems
in blank verse
  or rhyme...


Jan. 28, 2024


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* http://lit.lib.ru/editors/s/slobodkina_o/howcouldilovedoc.shtml