SOURCE: "In His Own Words," in Newsday, April 4, 1997, p. A6.

In the following essay, Schaer reports his impressions of Yevtushenko's public reading of his poetry during a visit to Long Island, New York, providing an overview of the poet's career.

Yevgeny Yevtushenko sat in the library director's office fidgeting with a pile of his poems, and the words he was murmuring were anything but lyrical: "too much, too much … I have to cut it down."

Russia's most famous living poet had come to the Connetquot Public Library in Bohemia, and minutes before he was to appear in the library's community room, he was hastily winnowing out poems from his program and concluding his rehearsal with his translator. "Is there a crowd out there?" he asked.

At 63, Yevtushenko is a poet with a long history, who in his own country could fill a Moscow soccer stadium with poetry lovers...