Welcome back to The Daily Poem. I'm David Kern, and today is Tuesday, November 9th, 2021.

Today's poem is by a Russian novelist, storywriter, poet, playwright, translator. His name was Ivan Tegenev.

He is best known for his short story collection, a sportsman's sketches, and his novel Fathers and Sons. Sportsman Sketches was written in 1852,

and then Fathers and Sons was released in 1862. Hemingway famously called Turggen of one of the greatest

writers ever. And if you've never read a sportsman's sketches or fathers and sons, I highly recommend

that you check those out.

Now, today would have been his birthday. He was born November 9th of 1818, so just over 200 years

old would have been. And he also wrote prose poems particularly. So I wanted to share one of those

with you today. and it's called

a dream. It has a lot of the markings of his fiction writing to it. There's a narrative to this poem,

and it's a little bit long, so I may only read it once, but this is how it goes. This is a dream by

Ivan Turgenev.

I fancied I was somewhere in Russia, in the wilds, in a simple country house.

The room big and low-pitched with three windows.

The walls whitewashed.

No furniture. Before the house, a barren plain, gradually sloping downwards,

it stretches into the distance. A gray, monotonous sky hangs over it like the canopy of a bed.

I am not alone. There are some ten persons in the room with me, all quite plain people,

simply dressed. They walk up and down in silence, as it were stealthily. They avoid one another,

and yet are continually looking anxiously at one another. Not one knows why he

has come into this house and what people there are with him. On all the faces, uneasiness, and despondency,

all in turn approach the windows and look about intently as though expecting something from without.

...