Ode to the Artist

You’re asking me to mind an imbuing man.

I look inside my sense but I see nothing. Then

In silence memory is speaking and arises Him:

The greatest inspiration of my soul, my action and my pen:

Nabokov, Vladimir.

Of course he is reckoned and widely known.

Wherever you may look, you see some seed he sown.

His boundless heritage. Unconsciously we keep it

‘Cause there is a thing in our lives: he scripted

It as a scenario of absurd film.

And this is why… I’m loving him.

His life was long (long live the King!)

And I am feeling the connection as to kin,

Somehow, in strangest way. I shall explain

But later. Everything began on that one day:

On April, twenty-second, eighteen ninety nine

When he was born in Petrograd. Aside

This place, the Moscow’s ancient town by itself

On the Onega’s shallow shelf.

He was a synesthete (as well as me!):

Nabokov saw the colours, nobody could see,

In symbols of the alphabets: he was a trílingual

And English, Russian, French were kneeling before one.

So, he became a student of an elite school

And angered the teachers with his texts that should,

Young Vladimir suspected, be in every tongue

He spoke. And didn’t matter how

The professor must put the mark “Five plus”

To an essay on literature of Russia class.

The coup d'état begins — he’s moving to Crimea

And his first literary success is coming here.

Then Cambridge University where he translates

The Anya in the Wonderlands.

In nineteen twenty two — Berlin.

That was a town of Nabokov’s soul to cling.

So, there he got married to his Hope:

His Vera Slonim, from the Jewish home.

Then the campaign of Artist — the bad one.

They had to move to Paris and spent time in Cannes.

But in a couple years — one more time, again:

When War came on the heels of them.

In the US he teaches in Wesley College

His! Russian literature relying on the knowledge.

Nabokov tells about Gogol, Leo Tólstoy

And writes Bend Sinister — his brilliant novel.

He’s fond of butterflies and even some — discovers!

Releasing masterpiece Lolita earns great money:

Eight million dollars, that’s enough to live

His life, until it ends, in Switzerland of which he dreamed.

Throughout his time Nabokov did a lot of things

That make him great and it inspires me.

He wrote in Russian and then switched the speech

To English yet became both súccessful and rich;

In foreign land did not betray

The culture of birthpláce that became fade.

Before his precise eyes the past.

I say, he did the only thing he must.

Eight times he was a nominee of Nobel Prize

Bit never held it ‘cause unwise

Commission-man rejected candidate:

A better than decisions made.

Let’s talk about things Nabokov changed in me.

At first — the way of listening the languages I speak.

I started hearing the play on words of pale world

And sonorous combining of consonants someone told.

The second — Gogol and Tolstoy again.

This isn’t great? I finished my Karenina this May

And bought book Taras Bulba resent week.

I should confess: those two are ones to make me weak.

The third — unaforementioned Pushkin and James Joyce.

They are, some way, — peculiarity of choice

Of literature to read when you’re eighteen.

But look and see anew — these all because of Him.

Nabokov influenced not only me but World.

And not just Russia or America yet whole.

So true: in every land and every language

I find ones to read him with the great encourage.