First Ice and First Frost

These two English Translations of the Russian poem by Andrei Voznesenky are about a girl being rejected for the first time. The young girl’s feelings of hurt and rejection are described in terms of coldness throughout the poem. “The first ice of human hurt”. The theme that is put across from the poem is of growing up, and the experience of loosing someone for the first time. Both of these poems are very similar, but they have both been translated in two different styles. This helps to alter the meaning a little from the original Russian version. The titles of the two Russian poems by Andrei Voznesenky ‘First ice’ and ‘First Frost’ differ in many ways. Examples of this are the word ‘Ice’ used in the first poem, ice I hard and takes a long time to melt. This suggests to me that it will take a long time for the girl to get over the special person who has hurt them so much. The writer of this poem probably used ‘Ice’ to show what the girl was feeling inside. Whereas ‘Frost’ in the second poem is softer and doesn’t hang around for a long time, meaning it may not take as long for this person to get over there hurt and rejection from there lover.

In the first poem the phrase ‘A girl freezes’ shows how the girl has become shocked, frozen to the spot. In poem two ‘ A girl freezing’ tells us that she isn’t frozen to the spot she is just freezing. This shows how the girl in the first poem has reacted a lot worse to the news of her rejection, she has been hurt more than the girl in the second poem. In ‘First ice’ the translator uses the word ‘smeared’ to describe how the girls lipstick has ended up on her face. In ‘First frost’ the word ‘Stained’ was used this is like staining a dress, this word is used to symbolise how much pain she is going through at the time. Smeared is something you can easily remove whereas stained cannot be removed as easy and will hang around. The line ‘She’ll have to go home alone alone’ tells you that the girl is on her own and very lonely. In