Anton Yakovlev Reading Translations of Sergei Yesenin

It is difficult to find a Russian person who doesn’t know by heart at least one poem by Sergei Yesenin (1895-1925), whose distinctive lyricism and lush rural imagery have indelibly imprinted themselves into the Russian consciousness. Second in popularity among Russian speakers only to Alexander Pushkin, Yesenin has received surprisingly little attention abroad, where he is best known for his brief marriage to Isadora Duncan. This reading will present The Last Poet of the Village (Sensitive Skin Books, 2019), a book of selected translations of Sergei Yesenin by Anton Yakovlev, whose goal is to rectify the relative scarcity of Yesenin’s English translations and to introduce English speakers to many of his most beloved and iconic poems.

Anton Yakovlev's Russian translations have appeared in National Translation Month, Exchanges, The Stockholm Review of Literature, Lunch Ticket, KGB Bar Lit Mag, and elsewhere. His poems have been published in over sixty journals including The New Yorker, The Hopkins Review, Amarillo Bay, Measure, Prelude, and upstreet. Originally from Moscow, Russia, Anton is a graduate of Harvard Universtity and the education director at Bowery Poetry Club.  

Regina Khidkel, RACC Director, is the curator of the Russian Reading Series at Yorkville Library.

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