Vladimir Mayakovsky is a Russian poet who lived and created at the dawn of the 20th century. Since my introduction to his art at school, I’ve loved it dearly — there is music to his unusual rhyme and composition, there is rebellion in what he says and how, and there is incredible intensity in all of his works. He loved madly and he lived on the edge. Mayakovsky has always been my most favourite poet for his edginess, extreme openness, vulnerability and lack of fear of innovating in art, while remaining true to himself, which translated so beautifully into his poems. I translated one of my favourite poems from Russian below. A better translation exists, I just wanted it to sound how I thought was closest to the original.

Could you?

I’ve smudged the map of everyday

At once by splashing glass of paint;

Revealing on a jelly dish

Slanted ocean cheekbones.

Upon the scales of a tin fish

I read allure of new lips.

And do you

Think you could

Play nocturne

On a drainpipe flute?