Poets and Poems: Alexander Voloshin and “Sidetracked”

Alexander Voloshin (1884-1960) was born in the Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire. He had a career in theater, but World War I intervened and he became part of the Imperial Army. Then the Russian Revolution happened, and he found himself involved in the White-Red Civil War. When the Communists triumphed, Voloshin remained briefly in the Crimea. That was followed by a travel odyssey to Berlin, Brazil, and then Ellis Island. After a time in New York City, he made his way to Los Angeles and Hollywood, like thousands of other émigré Russians.  

In Hollywood, he worked as a waiter and as an extra in movies. He was an actor in some 12 movies, the best known of which was “The World and the Flesh” (1932), starring Miriam Hopkins. The movie, set during the Russian Revolution, is about a rather nasty Communist revolutionary (Hollywood was big on Russian Revolution movies at the time). After his last role in 1937 (“Daughter of Shanghai,” starring Anna May Wong), Voloshin tried founding a theater magazine and writing for other publications. 

 

Voloshin was also a poet. He published one work, a saga of the Russian émigré experience from the revolution to his contemporary day. The work disappeared, until poet and translator Boris Dralyuk found a copy. Dralyuk has a deep interest in the Russian émigré experience; last year, he published his own poetry collection entitled My Hollywood.

 

Dralyuk translated and published Voloshin’s poem under its original title, Sidetracked: Exile in Hollywood. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Tuesday Readings

 

Up on the Hill’s Back – poem by David Whyte.

 

Poetry Prompt: Meet Your Muse Euterpe – L.L. Barkat at Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

The Chronicles of Never – poem by Baruch November at Every Day Poems.

 

“The Day of Judgment,” poem by Isaac Watts – Josph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

A Review of Petrarch’s Canzoniere, translated by A.M. Juster – Richard Wakefield at New Verse Review.

Poets and Poems: Boris Dralyuk and "My Hollywood"

From the time she was a teenager, my mother was a moviegoer. Cary Grant! Katherine Hepburn! Jimmy Stewart! Clark Gable! Her favorite movie of all time was Gone with the Wind. My father was not a moviegoer; he had to be dragged kicking and screaming into a theater, and my mother eventually gave up. She had me, and as soon as I was old enough, my summers, weekends, and holidays were framed by the movies.  

This is where I picked up a habit that has driven my wife and children crazy. I cry at sad movies, sad television shoes, and even sad or sentimental reels on Facebook. I was seven when she took me to see Last Voyage, with Dorothy Malone and my mother’s latest screen heartthrob, Robert Stack). I cried throughout most of the movie because of the tension. She felt so bad (it wasn’t a kid’s movie) that she walked us across Canal Street to another big movie theater to see Some Like It Hot, which was funny but also not a kid’s movie.

 

All those movie memories came back as I read My Hollywood and OtherPoems by Boris Dralyuk. His sense of the movies is filtered through how he understands one of the most cataclysmic events of the 20^th century – the Russian Revolution. The events of 1917 to 1922 dispersed hundreds of thousands of Russians (not to mention how many died). The emigres ended up in places like Shanghai, Berlin, Paris, New York, and – Hollywood. Many of the Russians in Hollywood developed successful careers in the movies. Many did not.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Tuesday Readings

 

The Shadows Cast by Fallen Towers – Will Rahn at The Free Press.

 

A Poem for the Third Anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II’s Death – Cynthia Erlandson ay Society of Classical Poets.

 

“The Tyger,” poem by William Blake – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Writing with Found Words – Maureen Doallas at Writing Without Paper.