The poem “Your name is a bird in your hand...” (1916) opens the cycle “Poems for Blok.” Tsvetaeva was not familiar with Blok; she saw him twice during performances and only in 1920. But already the poem of 1916 is imbued with admiration for the poet. For her, Blok is not a real poet, although the conversation is conducted on a first-name basis, as an equal to an equal, but a symbolic image of Poetry.
The main idea of the poem is that Poetry is all-pervasive, it is in everything, and therefore Blok, as embodied Poetry, is also in everything. And this spiritualizing and overshadowing presence of Blok-Poetry in man, in nature, in the world is conveyed through an amazingly diverse and amazingly accurate series of sound images, reminiscent of the sound of his name - “block”. The frightened beating of a bird's wings and the clap of a ball caught in flight, the whimper of a stone thrown into a pond and the click of a trigger - all this is a “block” and a block. Blok-Poetry in everything, from birth to death:
Your name - oh, it’s impossible! —
Your name is a kiss on the eyes,
In the gentle cold of motionless eyelids.
Your name is a kiss in the snow.
Key, icy, blue sip.
With your name - deep sleep.
Marina Tsvetaeva, contrary to the opinion of amateurs from the pen, dedicated the poem “Your name is a bird in the hand” not to her husband, Sergei Efron, but to her poetic idol, Alexander Blok. He was the only poet whom Tsvetaeva idolized; she dedicated several poems to him, and “Your Name” is one of the most striking.
What attracted the poetess so much to Blok was this aria from another opera; perhaps she was attracted to the great symbolist by what was missing in herself - the mystery of the lines and the play with symbols. It must be said that in this poem symbolism is used to the fullest; more on this in the analysis below.
Symbolism of Tsvetaeva
Symbolism is actively used in the lines (sorry for the repetition). A bird in your hand is the ability to keep your freedom under control, which Marina lacked. The ice on the tongue is the depth of Blok’s lines, when reading which you want to remain silent, and the silver bell is the sweet and sour aftertaste after reading Blok’s works.
Tsvetaeva finds symbols around herself that the poet’s name can be compared to. This is the clicking of night hooves, and the sound of a stone thrown into a pond, and even the click of a trigger near the temple.
And he will call it to our temple
The trigger clicks loudly.
Well, not knowing Blok closely, Tsvetaeva tries to get closer to the poet, at least in poetry:
Your name is a kiss on the eyes.
The Riddle of the Poem
There is a riddle in the poem that raises questions among those who do not know the grammar of those years. Why:
Is your name five letters?
A block is 4 letters, why five? Everything is simple, in the language of that time, at the end of Blok’s surname there was the letter “yat”, in simple terms, a solid sign “Blok”. Here are five letters for you.
The poem ends with a comparison of the hero's name with a kiss in the snow, but Tsvetaeva puts the final point by saying that with this name the sleep is deep. We always associate sleep with calm and trust. Concluding the poem, Tsvetaeva is satisfied with her work, pleased that she has once again given her beloved poet what he deserves.
From the poems we conclude that Blok aroused a storm of emotions in Tsvetaeva, his creativity and mystery always attracted the poetess, and in many ways she took her example in her work from him. It is impossible to say now whether Marina built an idol from Blok, but the fact that she put him at the head of Russian poetry is a fact.
Your name is a bird in your hand,
Your name is like ice on the tongue.
One single movement of the lips.
Your name is five letters.
A ball caught on the fly
Silver bell in mouth.
A stone thrown into a quiet pond
Sob as your name is.
In the light clicking of night hooves
Your big name is booming.
And he will call it to our temple
The trigger clicks loudly.
Your name - oh, it’s impossible! —
Your name is a kiss on the eyes,
In the gentle cold of motionless eyelids.
Your name is a kiss in the snow.
Key, icy, blue sip...
With your name - deep sleep.
A romance with the words of a poem will help you understand the topic more deeply.
The poem is dedicated to the name of Blok, and opens a cycle of sixteen poems to A. Blok (1916-1921). In three stanzas, Tsvetaeva describes Blok’s name (without naming him) phonetically and graphically; compares the sounds of the name with the sounds of nature; brings an emotional association with the sound of a kiss. One syllable, five letters (in the pre-revolutionary spelling “Blok”), “one single movement of the lips” - and a whole world, elusive and elusive: it is a “bird in the hand” that is about to fly away, “a piece of ice on language,” which instantly melts and disappears. In the second stanza, the world of Blok’s ethical images is revealed: “a stone thrown into a quiet pond” (the silence of nature, the peace of his beloved Shakhmatovo estate), “the clicking of night hooves” (Blok’s image of a flying trotter over a gap into eternity; a troika carrying away happiness in this way), “a loudly clicking trigger” (Blok’s tragic “terrible world”). In the third stanza, Tsvetaeva confesses her love to the poet, hinting at the image of his Snow Mask (“oh, you can’t!”, “kiss in the snow,” “ice sip”). Her timeless (though written in the present tense) sentences of the poem. The syntactic parallelism of the first and third stanzas adds integrity to the composition of the poem. Material from the site Metaphors of the first stanza (“a bird in the hand”, “a piece of ice on the tongue”, “a ball caught on the fly”, epithets (“the gentle cold of motionless eyelids”, “a key, icy, blue sip”), personification (“the stone will sob”, “the trigger will call”) - all these tropes enliven the image of Blok, make it multidimensional. The poem ends with the word “deep”, containing all the letters of Blok’s name, rhyming with it and reflecting, in Tsvetaeva’s opinion, the essence of the immortal Poet.
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Blok and Tsvetaeva... What is Tsvetaeva’s secret? What makes her unlike anyone else and at the same time internally connects her with Blok? First of all, the originality of the personality of the fighting poets, the rebellious spirit, rebellion, unprecedented energy, emphasized tension. Freedom from conventions modern life embodied in the features of style. These features were reflected in the poems dedicated to Blok. They combine love confessions with a funeral lament and sound like an extremely sincere confession. The tragic feeling of loneliness makes Tsvetaeva similar to Blok. For her, Blok is “two white wings,” an angel, God’s righteous man. A block is something sublime, light, but for some reason elusive and insubstantial. Tsvetaeva glorifies the name of Blok, loves, listens to, and prays to him. In all the poems of the cycle, written from 1916 to 1921, we feel the bitterness of loss and hope for resurrection. The title poem in the cycle is “Your name is a bird in your hand...”. It is surprising in that in it, which opens the cycle, Blok’s name is never uttered, but still we unmistakably determine who we are talking about. The poem consists of 3 stanzas. In the first, Tsvetaeva recreates the phonetic and even graphic image of the word “Blok”, each line is significant in the formation of the image of Blok. “Your name is a bird in your hand” - the word “block” has only one syllable, but we feel this elusiveness of the moment. Here it is, a bird, alive, warm, but if you open your palms, it will fly away and it will be gone. This is echoed by the line “one single movement of the lips.” Say a word - it flies away and cannot be returned. For Tsvetaeva, every sound of the block name is important. When we pronounce “l”, an image of something light, cold, and blue appears. This is how the line “your name is like a piece of ice on the tongue” appeared. A piece of ice is a tickling chill of mystery, a touch to the innermost depths of the soul.
The musical palette of the poem is extremely rich: here is the ringing of a bell, the clicking of a trigger, and the clatter of hooves. The word “block” absorbs all the sounds, all the colors so skillfully applied to the canvas of the verse by the artist. He is both “a ball caught on the fly” and “a stone thrown into a quiet pond.” I just want to repeat Tsvetaeva’s words from the third stanza, reminiscent of the sound of a kiss. Tsvetaeva’s block is her love, spiritual, unearthly love. Tsvetaeva tries to hear the world of his snow mask in the sound of the poet’s name: “key, icy, blue.” It is also symbolic that the last word of the poem - “deep” - contains all the sounds of the poet’s name and rhymes with it, because he is immeasurable, like his poetry .
The syntax of the poem is very close to the syntax of the lok itself. Tsvetaeva uses verbless syntactic constructions, which allows her to achieve special expression in conveying her feelings. Sentences record the present tense, but they have a special, timeless character. They emphasize Blok's immortality. This allows you to focus on the main thing for her - the associative series. That is why the poet’s tension and agitation are so great. Tsvetaeva uses syntactic parallelism: the construction of syntactic structures of stanzas 1 and 3 coincide, which gives the poem compositional completeness and integrity. The anaphora “thy name” draws our attention precisely to the key word and enhances admiration for the poet. Even Tsvetaeva’s dash carries a syntactic load - it is necessary to pause. Inversion also helps Tsvetaeva. She makes the lines especially smooth: ".. in a light click...". Blok’s visual image is helped to create tropes: metaphors (“a bird in the hand”, “a piece of ice on the tongue”) - they express an emotional attitude towards the poet; epithets (“the gentle cold of motionless eyelids”); personification (“calls the trigger”), which makes Blok’s image more vivid and memorable.
The narrative is held together not so much by the plot as by the energy of Tsvetaeva’s monologue. This energy is given to the poem by each of its elements.
Your name is a bird in your hand,
Your name is like a piece of ice on the tongue.
One single movement of the lips.
Your name is five letters.
A ball caught on the fly
Silver bell in mouth.
A stone thrown into a quiet pond
Sob as your name is.
In the light clicking of night hooves
Your big name is booming.
And he will call it to our temple
The trigger clicks loudly.
Your name - oh, you can’t! -
Your name is a kiss in the eyes,
In the gentle cold of motionless eyelids.
Your name is a kiss in the snow.
Key, icy, blue sip...
With your name - deep sleep.
Analysis of the poem “Your name is a bird in your hand” by Tsvetaeva
M. Tsvetaeva treated the creativity and personality of A. Blok with great trepidation and respect. There were practically no relations between them, not even friendly ones. This is partly explained by the fact that the poetess idolized the symbolist poet, considering him an unearthly creature who mistakenly visited our world. Tsvetaeva dedicated a whole cycle of poems to Blok, including “Your name is a bird in your hand...” (1916).
The work, in fact, is a set of epithets that the poetess gives to Blok’s surname. All of them emphasize the unreality of the poet, of which Tsvetaeva was sure. These various definitions are united by swiftness and ephemerality. A name consisting of five letters (according to pre-revolutionary spelling, the letter “er” was written at the end of Blok’s surname) for the poetess is like “one single movement of the lips.” She compares it to objects (a piece of ice, a ball, a bell) that are in motion; short-term, abrupt sounds (“clicking… hooves”, “clicking trigger”); symbolic intimate actions (“kiss on the eyes”, “kiss on the snow”). Tsvetaeva deliberately does not pronounce the surname itself (“Oh, you can’t!”), considering this blasphemy towards an incorporeal creature.
Blok really made a strong impression on nervous girls, who often fell in love with him. He was at the mercy of the symbols and images created in his imagination, which allowed him to exert an inexplicable influence on those around him. Tsvetaeva fell under this influence, but managed to preserve the originality of her own works, which undoubtedly benefited her. The poetess had a very subtle understanding of poetry and saw real talent in Blok’s work. In the poet’s poems, which seemed complete nonsense to an inexperienced reader, Tsvetaeva saw a manifestation of cosmic forces.
Of course, these two strong creative personalities were similar in many ways, especially in the ability to completely detach themselves from real life and exist in the world of their own dreams. Moreover, Blok succeeded in this to an incredible extent. That is why Tsvetaeva respected and secretly envied the symbolist poet to such an extent. The main difference between the poetess and impressionable young ladies was that there could be no talk of love. Tsvetaeva could not imagine how one could experience too “earthly” feelings for an ephemeral creature. The only thing the poetess is counting on is spiritual intimacy without any physical contact.
The poem ends with the phrase “With your name, the sleep is deep,” which returns the reader to reality. Tsvetaeva admitted that she often fell asleep while reading.