At the Top of My Voice by Vladimir Mayakovsky
"At the Top of My Voice" is a poem by Vladimir Mayakovsky that serves as a complex reflection on his life, work, and the socio-political landscape of the Soviet Union during Stalin's Five Year Plan. Divided into two distinct parts, the poem begins with a robust defense of Mayakovsky's contributions to revolutionary art, positioning him as a "cesspool cleaner" whose poetry emerges amidst historical decay. He employs military imagery to convey his commitment to the revolution, rejecting personal accolades in favor of a collective legacy with fellow revolutionaries.
The first part culminates in a call to action for the ambitious economic initiative, celebrating the practical aspects of life over material honors. In contrast, the second part of the poem shifts in tone, revealing a sense of disillusionment and resignation. Here, Mayakovsky expresses a profound skepticism about the efficacy of his words in the oppressive climate of Stalinist governance. Despite this bleak outlook, he asserts the enduring power of poetry, acknowledging its ability to transcend time and circumstance. The poem remains unfinished, reflecting Mayakovsky's personal struggles and foreshadowing his tragic end. This work encapsulates the tension between artistic integrity and political reality in early Soviet society.
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At the Top of My Voice by Vladimir Mayakovsky
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of World Literature, Revised Edition
First published:Vo ves’ golos, 1930 (English translation, 1940)
Type of work: Poem
The Work
At the Top of My Voice is divided into two parts. In a subtitle, the poem is called a “First Prelude to a Poem on the Five Year Plan,” which suggests that the poem is about Stalin’s controversial economic plan. It might more accurately, however, be called a defense of the life and work of Vladimir Mayakovsky. Part 1 describes the survival of Mayakovsky’s work after the “petrified s——t” of the centuries has been removed. The speaker describes his poetic function as a “cesspool cleaner” who has been “mobilised and drafted/ by revolution.” His poetry has not been lyrical, but “my pages of fighters;/ pass in review.” He uses military metaphors rather than ones drawn from nature. His poetry is rooted in the triumph of the revolution. He learned “dialectics” not from Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel but from actual conflict.
As in the Lenin poem, he rejects any statues of himself, calling them “marble slime.” Instead, he is to have a “common monument” with all the “brothers and mates” who fought for the revolution. The first part of the poem ends with a demand to “step hard on the throttle” for the five year plan. The poet is content with “clean-laundered shirts,” no greater honors are necessary. In a defiant final declaration he offers a defense of his life: “I’ll lift up high,/ like a Bolshevik party-card,/ all the hundred volumes/ of my/ Com Party books.” Mayakovsky did not possess a Communist Party card; that honor was given to the bureaucrats who served Stalin. Mayakovsky’s works, however, will entitle him to a higher and truer honor.
Part 2 of the poem is unfinished, fragmentary, and very different in tone. It was as if Mayakovsky had given up the possibility of winning favor from such a corrupt government. He hopes only that “shameful common-sense” does not ever come to him. He will no longer badger his colleagues in the party with “express telegrams.” The struggle no longer has meaning, “The love-boat of life/ has crashed on philistine reefs./ You and I/ are quits.” In the last section, he declares his faith in the power of his poetry. “I know the power of words.” Words can make “coffins” burst from the earth and stride forth. The powerful may “reject” him and he may remain “unpublished, unprinted.” The power of his words, however, will live on in the centuries to come. The last line and sentence of the poem, however, were not completed. Mayakovsky had, apparently, given up his belief in the power of words to alter his situation in the Stalinist Soviet Union. He would soon commit suicide.
Bibliography
Brown, Edward J. Mayakovsky: A Poet in the Revolution. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1973.
Obolensky, Dimitri, ed. The Penguin Book of Russian Verse. New York: Penguin Books, 1962.
Porter, Robert, ed. Seven Soviet Poets. 2d ed. London: Bristol Classical, 2002.
Shklovsky, Viktor. Mayakovsky and His Circle. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1972.
Stahlberger, Lawrence L. The Symbolic System of Mayakovski. The Hague, the Netherlands: Mouton, 1964.
Triolet, Elsa. Mayakovsky, Russian Poet: A Memoir. Translated by Susan de Muth. London: Hearing Eye, 2002.