I enjoy studying Russian and had some questions related to poetry.
1. I really like reading about and studying poems from the Silver Age. I would like to be able to read them in their original language so I started off with Akhmatova's "Vecher" collection. It has been going pretty well - I really love the poems anyway and I find analyzing the grammar and vocabulary to be within my reach. I have tried studying bilingual Russian/English editions of some of my other favorite writers including Mandelstam, Yesenin and Mayakovsky but have found them to be much more difficult to analyze for exact vocabulary meaning and grammar. It seems the english translations are often nowhere near the originals. So my question is - I was wondering if anyone could recommend other Russian poets that are for the most part fairly directly translated into English that I could have a look at? They don't have to be from the Silver Age - my only preference is I find rhymes help a great deal with memorizing vocabulary.
2. I was just curious - growing up in Russian schools what poets were most frequently taught? I've often heard Mayakovsky and Pushkin mentioned and was wondering if that was true?
Many thanks, Kim
