Poetry by Marina Tsvetaeva

Translated from the Russian by Ilya Kaminsky

First published in English in Words Without Borders' February 2005 issue: Love, Literally.

for "To kiss a forehead is to erase worry."
https://wwb-campus.org/literature/to-kiss-a-forehead-is-to-erase-worry

Marina Tsvetaeva

Portrait of Marina Tsvetaeva from a 1992 postage stamp. By USSR Post Office, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Marina Tsvetaeva is widely acknowledged by critics and by Russian readers as a leading Russian poet of the twentieth century. Rainer Maria Rilke wrote to Tsvetaeva in 1926: "You, poet, do you sense how you have overwhelmed me . . . I'm writing like you and I descend like you the few steps down from the sentence into the mezzanine of parentheses . . ." (Pasternak, Tsvetayeva, Rilke: Letters, Summer 1926. Translated by Margaret Wettlin and Walter Arndt. New York, 1985).

Marina Tsvetaeva was born in Moscow in 1892. Her father was a founder of the Moscow Museum of the Fine Arts, her mother a pianist. Marina published her first book of poems, Evening Album, at seventeen. After the revolution, while her husband, Sergei Efron, was fighting in the White Army, Tsvetaeva and her two small daughters were reduced to terrible poverty. Her youngest daughter died of hunger. In 1921 Tsvetaeva emigrated, first to Berlin, then to Czechoslovakia, and then to Paris to join her husband. Her collection of poems Mileposts I was published in Moscow in 1922, the year she emigrated, and was greatly admired by Boris Pasternak. In Prague Tsvetaeva wrote some of her finest poems, published in Paris in her collection After Russia. Other books she published during her emigré period include Parting (Berlin, 1921), Poems to Blok (Berlin, 1923), and Psyche (Berlin, 1923). The poverty Tsvetaeva had endured in postrevolutionary Russia followed her in her emigré years. Loyalty to her husband drove Tsvetaeva back to the Soviet Union. Two months after Tsvetaeva's arrival in Moscow, her daughter Ariadna was arrested; a month later her husband was arrested as well. When the Germans attacked Russia, Tsvetaeva was evacuated to Elabuga in Central Asia. Unable to find work for herself or food for her son, she hanged herself on August 31, 1941.

Ilya Kaminsky (translator)

Ilya Kaminsky was born in Odessa, in the former Soviet Union, and came to the United States in 1993, when his family was granted asylum by the American government. He is the author of Dancing In Odessa (Tupelo Press, 2004), which won the Dorset Prize and the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Metcalf Award. His other awards include a Whiting Writers Award, a Ruth Lilly Fellowship from Poetry magazine, and a Lannan Fellowship. His poems appear in The New Republic, American Literary Review, Southwest Review, Salmagundi, Southeast Review, and other publications. He teaches at San Diego State University.

Links available online only

Meet Marina Tsvetaeva

Poet Marina Tsvetaeva. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Read "Five Intriguing Facts" about Marina Tsvetaeva, and then find out why "every verse" she wrote was "a child of love." (Note: Russia Beyond is run by a Russian government-funded media company.)

Then, read about Marina Tsvetaeva’s life during the “terrible years” of Russian history, and the influence of that era on her poetry. Scroll down to the bottom of this brief article for more poems.

Meet Translator Ilya Kaminsky

Translator Ilya Kaminsky. By Slowking, CC BY-NC 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Find out why Marina Tsvetaeva is regarded as a “difficult” poet, even in Russia, in Ilya Kaminsky’s translator’s note.

Hear the Names

Listen to pronunciations of the Russian names from this poem, read aloud by Dmitry Kurmanov.

(Listen to audio on SoundCloud.)

Read the Original

Read the poem in its original language, Russian.

Then, look at an annotated version of the original poem, with word-by-word translations in English and transliterations of the Russian.

A Scholar's Notes

Photo by Vladimir Efroimson.

Read what Julia Trubikhina writes about this poem in the Russia introduction:

Marina Tsvetaeva wrote “To kiss a forehead is to erase worry” (1917) simultaneously with her cycle “The Demesne of the Swans” (1917–21), a poetic diary of the “Russian smuta of the twentieth century”—the Civil War. The cycle’s poems romanticizing the White army were, according to her daughter Ariadna’s memories, Tsvetaeva’s immediate reaction to the wild, elemental force of the Russian Revolution. . . . “To kiss a forehead is to erase worry” resembles a love spell based on repetition of identical formulae followed by their enactment. The kisses on the eyes and on the lips that arouse one to life and desire are framed by two kisses on the forehead—at the beginning and at the end of the poem—which grant blissful oblivion.

Links available online only

More from Marina Tsvetaeva

Marina Tsvetaeva's signature. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Read "An Attempt at Jealousy" and other Tsvetaeva poems about love and life, published by the Poetry Foundation.

More from Translator Ilya Kaminsky

Cover of "Dark Elderberry Branch: Poems of Marina Tsvetaeva."

Many of the poems linked above appear in a collection of Tsvetaeva's poetry, translated by Ilya Kaminsky and Jean Valentine. Read about translators' approach to Tsvetaeva's poetry, and find out why they do not call their work translation, but rather, "reading."

Then, read the full collection: Dark Elderberry Branch.

"Our country woke up next morning and refused to hear soldiers." Read poems from Kaminsky's collection Deaf Republic (and hear the poet read them himself) in a multimedia feature from the New Yorker. Or, check out the full poetry collection.

Tsvetaeva’s Life and Legacy

Marina Tsvetaeva's house in Moscow. By Eden87, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Look at pictures of Marina Tsvetaeva’s House Museum in Moscow. Tsvetaeva lived in the house with her family from 1914 to 1922, the time during which she wrote this poem.

You can also browse the museum site, and use Google’s translate function to understand the Russian captions.

To learn more about the poet's life, read Marina Tsvetaeva: The Double Beat of Heaven and Hell by Lily Feiler.

The world almost lost Marina Tsvetaeva’s poetry; find out how two women saved her legacy. (Note: Russia Beyond is run by a Russian government-funded media company.)

Tsvetaeva and Her Contemporaries

Boris Pasternak and Rainer Maria Rilke. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Learn about the correspondences between Marina Tsvetaeva and her "blood brothers in poetry," Boris Pasternak and Rainer Maria Rilke. The three poets were “separated by geography but united by the desolation of exile, loneliness, and ill health.”

Marina Tsvetaeva and Anna Akhmatova are famous for being widely respected, far-ranging woman poets at a time when women were only expected to write love poems. Read about contemporary Russian woman poets and find out what they write about now. (Note: Russia Beyond is run by a Russian government-funded media company.)

Marina Tsvetaeva had interesting, and, in some cases, complicated relationships with her contemporaries. Read a poem written to Marina Tsvetaeva by Anna Akhmatova (their relationship was “distant”) and one from Osip Mandelshtam (he was a lover of hers, and a close friend of Akhmatova).

Meet Tsvetaeva's Family

Marina Tsvetaeva's father, Ivan Tsvetaev, and her daughter, Ariadna Efron. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Marina Tsvetaeva’s daughter, Ariadna Efron, is known for her famous friendship with writer Ada Federolf—they met in the gulag. Read about their “friendship among the horror.” (Note: Russia Beyond is run by a Russian government-funded media company.)

Then, take a virtual walk through the Pushkin State Museum in Moscow, which was founded by Marina Tsvetaeva’s father, Ivan Tsvetaev, in 1893.

Russia in 1917

Protesters in Saint Petersburg in 1917. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Listen to a podcast to find out why Russia experienced two revolutions in 1917, the year Tsvetaeva wrote this poem.

Then, read about the tumultuous events of 1917 on the site Seventeen Moments in Soviet History.

Read Russian Proverbs

The statements in this poem sound like they could be Russian folk sayings, or proverbs. Read some actual Russian proverbs, like "The less you know, the better you'll sleep," on the Master Russian website.

More Russian Folk-Inspired Art

Listen to the song "Lyubish Li Tih" (Do You Love) by Otava Yo, a contemporary Russian band that, like Tsvetaeva, finds inspiration in folk traditions.

Then, read an interview with one of Otava Yo's musicians on the site World Music Central: "Folk songs are all over, all you need [is] just to wish to listen to them."

More Poems with Translator's Notes*

"Poems for Parting," a Tang Dynasty–era poem from China, with David Young and Jiann I. Lin's translator's note
"Sleepless Homeland," a contemporary poem from Mexico (published with the original language version), with translator Samantha Schnee's essay

*For Teaching Idea 1

More Music-Influenced Poetry*

"Sleepless Homeland," by Carmen Boullosa, is influenced by a very different kind of "folk music"—Mexico's narcocorridos.
"Nothing Remains Empty," by Juan Gregorio Regino, includes rhythms that echo indigenous Mazateco chants.
"Poem to the Tune 'Pure Peace,'" by Li Bai, a Tang Dynasty era poem meant to be accompanied with music which has now been lost.
"Another Lullaby for Insomniacs," by A. E. Stallings
"Don't Think Twice, It's All Right," by Bob Dylan, whose songs are influenced by both poetry and folk music. (Lyrics.)

*For Teaching Idea 2

Reading Grade Level(s): 2, 3 and up

1. Translating, or "Reading," Tsvetaeva
2. Song and Poetry

To access these Teaching Ideas, please register or login to WWB-Campus.

"To kiss a forehead is to erase worry."

To kiss a forehead is to erase worry.
I kiss your forehead.

To kiss the eyes is to lift sleeplessness.
I kiss your eyes.

To kiss the lips is to drink water.
I kiss your lips.

To kiss a forehead is to erase memory.
I kiss your forehead.

Related Reading

Sleepless Homeland - Poetry

Poem to the Tune "Pure Peace" - Poetry

Nothing Remains Empty - Poetry

Poems for Parting - Poetry