Yevtushenko on Kent State

Russian Poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko has had his troubles in the past for criticizing Soviet policies. In recent years, he has also kept up a poetic and suitably critical commentary on the U.S. scene. Last week in Pravda, Yevtushenko published a 111-line poem to Allison Krause, one of the four students killed by National Guard gunfire at Kent State University. His theme was a gesture reportedly made by Allison, 19, on the day before her death. She put a flower in the muzzle of a Guardsman's rifle and said: "Flowers are better than bullets." It was one of the Russian's more bathetic recent poems, aimed not so much against America as against war and militarist authority. Sample lines:

Rock and roll upon bones, now death dances in Viet Nam, and in Cambodia. Where will it dance tomorrow? Rise up, girls of Tokyo, boys of Rome. Aim your flowers at the universal evil enemy. Blow aloft all the dandelion fluff of the world. Oh, what a mighty blizzard that will make!

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