Margo Hammond: Do you consider yourself a political poet?
Yevgeny Yevtushenko: I didn't become popular as a political poet, but as a poet of love. But, as I said, I think intellectuals have a moral responsibility to speak up. [On March 6] I didn't sleep. In Moscow, an old Cuban man was killed. He was a cigar roller. He was killed by some teenagers, some skinheads, nationalists. I was so ashamed. My poem -- Death of a Cigar Roller -- was published earlier this month in Russia in Novye Izvestiya. I also called a radio station in Moscow and recited this poem to hundreds of thousands of Russians. I hate any kind of aggressive nationalism. That's why I wrote Babi Yar, many years ago.
Margo Hammond: You first visited the US in 1961 -- when you were the most dangerous man in the USSR. What do you see is the biggest change in this country since that time?
Yevgeny Yevtushenko: To be honest, I liked the US more in the 1960s than now. When I came, I had never seen protests before. In America, I saw demonstrations against racism, against war. I saw Martin Luther King, marching together with Dr. Benjamin Spock. I heard a young Joan Baez singing We Shall Overcome. This song has been a secret anthem of my soul. I saw great freedom here. Great compassion. Now when I tell my students about that time, unfortunately, they look at me like I'm talking about the history of another country. In Russia, the same thing is happening: Young people don't know history, not even recent history. They don't read books. We shouldn't be indifferent to this. The US and Russia, mighty nuclear states, are responsible for the spiritual life of our people.
Margo Hammond: How close are you to finishing your three-volume anthology, Ten Centuries of Russian Poetry?
Yevgeny Yevtushenko: I am trying to finish it this year. I sleep now four hours a day. Each Friday, I publish one chapter from this anthology in Novye Izvestiya.
Margo Hammond: What has been the most difficult part of this project?
Yevgeny Yevtushenko: Time. I choose poets and then I have to read everything that poet wrote. It's like rehabilitating people who were behind the bars of oblivion. I pull them out and resurrect them. It's a great responsibility.
Margo Hammond: When you published your first poems in 1949, you were a soccer player. Do you ever regret that you chose poetry over soccer?
Yevgeny Yevtushenko: I may have lost my chance to become a professional soccer player, but my novel, s, is partly dedicated to soccer. The main hero is a soccer player.
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