The Russian immigrant poet Igor Yevelev
Igor Yevelev is a Senior Test Engineer. But under this guise Igor Yevelev - who arrived ten years ago from Belarus - writes poetry. His son, Gary Yevelev is an exceptional young man, graduated in Berkeley and works at Google. He mentored my son David
Igor translated the most famous Israeli poet, Yehuda Amichai in Russian. I went to a reading of his poetry.
The room was full of elderly people, mostly women who spoke Russian. Igor read the poems first in English. The audience did not react. Then he read his Russian translations. I speak no Russian, so I look around. A lady next to me had shiny eyes. The audience clapped wildly, with visible pleasure.
When he translates, Igor said, he changes words day after day. As he discovers more meanings, he replaces the Russian words, and gets more and more exact poetic feelings. A Russian reader must feel the same emotions and the native Hebrew readers.
"What is is my first language?", he asks himself, repeating a question people love asking him. "It depends. If I speak or write about love, is Russian. If I speak about being laid off at the office, it's English."
Igor works for a large semiconductor company. They outsource jobs to India.
Tonight, I found a love poem of Yehuda Amichai, Once A Great Love:
Igor translated the most famous Israeli poet, Yehuda Amichai in Russian. I went to a reading of his poetry.
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| Yehuda Amichai |
When he translates, Igor said, he changes words day after day. As he discovers more meanings, he replaces the Russian words, and gets more and more exact poetic feelings. A Russian reader must feel the same emotions and the native Hebrew readers.
"What is is my first language?", he asks himself, repeating a question people love asking him. "It depends. If I speak or write about love, is Russian. If I speak about being laid off at the office, it's English."
Igor works for a large semiconductor company. They outsource jobs to India.
Tonight, I found a love poem of Yehuda Amichai, Once A Great Love:
Once a great love cut my life in two.The poem goes on:
The first part goes on twisting
at some other place like a snake cut in two.
The passing years have calmed meBut I stopped after the third verse. There is no healing yet, here in Silicon Valley.
and brought healing to my heart and rest to my eyes.
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