"When People Die, They Sing Songs" - An Initial Look at Russian Futurism

Partial List of Poems Read (not in the order read, though):
- Excerpt from “A Cloud in Trousers” – Vladimir Mayakovsky
- Past One O’Clock – Vladimir Mayakovsky
- About Petersburg – V. Mayakovsky
- Listen! – V. Mayakovsky
- To His Own Beloved Self – V. Mayakovsky
- Once Again, Once Again – Velemir Khlebnikov
- Dostoeskimo snowstorms! - V. Khlebnikov
- Invocation of Laughter – V. Khlebnikov
- When Horses Die, They Breathe – V. Khlebnikov
- Today I Will Go, Once Again – V. Khlebnikov

When I first encountered Russian Futurism, I was initially unsurprised by the angry, somewhat frustrated tone I encountered in many of the works. Upon first glance, these works from poets such as Mayakovsky and Khlebnikov fell right under the clichés of what I imagined Russian poetry to consist of. It seemed forceful, exclamatory, angry, and marchlike – all generalizations often associated (in, I’ll admit, ignorance) with elitist Russia. What I found as I continued to read more works was a collection of poems dedicated to reestablishing what is considered important and logical, with Walt Whitman-esque musings and questions asked that only sparked more questions from the reader. More interesting, I found intimate reflections of personal experiences and, though told in what seems to me a foreign expression, transcended their uncouth subjects with world-wide sentiments.

I first felt this change in subject matter within Mayakovsky’s “Past One O’Clock”, which reads similar to a note or statement to a love lost. The verse is free but still manages to be lyrical, and manages to steer away from the trite. Through his writing, we see the speaker as settled with his current situation, though still hurt and saddened. With both the diction and syntax he chooses, his poems read quite easily, as if they are literally trickling from his pen (if such eloquence was not deliberate and studied though, I am even more impressed).
My surface searches to find poets of this movement (also, referred to as Hylaeans) led me to more politically fueled works, exclaiming the wrongs of the government and explaining that this has led to “broken men”. As I found other poems though – some more obscure than others – I found these Walt Whitman style poems – darker and more cynical that Whitman, but adopting his lengthy passages, philosophical questions, and wonder of the world surrounding us. In, “To His Own Beloved Self” Mayakovsky employs contractions to parallel his feelings of life’s ironies, calling the Pacific Ocean “shallow” and millionaires “poor”. In the second situation, he continues by asking, “what’s cash for the soul?” I absolutely loved this line, and it continues to stick out in my consciousness, a question I’ve asked myself many times, but never in such a beautiful manner. Mayakovsky is able to capture sentiments of people in different times and of different status all at once, a characteristic of the Russian Futurist movement that I enjoy… above the dissecting of the logical and illogical.

Velemir Khlebnikov – a friend of Mayakovsky and another founding member of this movement – seems slightly harsher in his poetry about love. While Mayakovsky’s “Past One O’Clock” seems accepting of the ending of a relationship, Khlebnikov’s “Once Again, Once Again” seems bitter and spiteful to the speaker’s past love interest, wishing for her to meet a disastrous fate so he can laugh at her, as she has laughed at him. His hurt seems more focused on revenge than acceptance, and even still, his use of stars and the sea – two subjects often romanticized by poets, but used as brutal weapons by Khlebnikov – still manage to come off beautiful. While the content is abrasive, his syntax proves for continuous beautiful prose.

However, to veer away from this trend, Khlebnikov also began experimenting with poetry more related to sounds and movements as opposed to contents. Because of this, his diction becomes more harsh, and poetry nonsensical. This creates a more guttural form of poetry, closer to the aesthetics of the Dadaist moment:

Dostoeskimo snowstorms!

Pushkincandescence of noon!

Night resembles Tiutchev,

Filling the unfathomable full of the unknown.

Though I initially was confused by this poem, I found myself pleading for its simplicity when I stumbled upon his “Invocation of Laughter”, which is based almost entirely off of nonsense-derisions of the word “laugh”. I am still confused with it…which I think is at least one of Khlebnikov’s desired effects upon the reader.

Despite – or perhaps because of – this, I truly enjoyed reading this poetry. It was a great departure from the standard prose we learn about in normal curriculum at the high school. More than any other poems I’ve read (with the exception of Allen Ginsberg), the works of the Russian Futurists seemed most in tune with both the art movements of the time as well as the period’s politics. It is an interesting, harsh, and ingenious take on day-to-day life, relatable to many, reproduced by few.