About the essence of poetic art and why poetry. Why almost nothing good happens in Russian poetry Why do writers need poetry?

One day Ivan Volkov, a poet and winner of the Pasternak Prize, moved from Moscow to Kostroma. He now lives there, works as a chess coach and writes poetry. The day before world day poetry* we asked Ivan Evgenievich to tell us what he thinks about the state of his profession in today's Russia.

Not friends, just friends

- Do you agree with the statement that Russian poetry is now flourishing, just like at the beginning of the last century?

I think this is a blatant lie - Russian poetry is in terrible decline. I think it all happens like this: twenty, thirty, or maybe a hundred very mediocre poets unite and decide among themselves that they are in their heyday and have a brilliant age. I proceed from the fact that poetry is not mass verse writing; what is important is the presence of major creative personalities. And major creative personalities in the country can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Most of the people who now define the poetic fashion called “contemporary poetry” are, in general, charlatans. Well, that's a personal point of view.

- It seems to me that civil expression is in demand in modern poetry, like Emelin, for example. And in general, I don’t know of examples where a person only “sang sweet affection” and was a real Russian poet.

It happens like this, it happens the other way around, and both are completely normal; a poet, just like any normal person, may or may not be interested in politics. Didn't an example come to your mind - well, please, Feta, who didn't have a single topical line? Or it may be the other way around; Mayakovsky is a completely legitimate phenomenon. It is important that it is a personal matter for the poet whether he is interested in politics or not, and if he is interested, then to what extent.

And what Emelin is doing is not civil poetry, but an imitation of civil poetry. He is not a civic poet, but a pure decadent, and this is one of the poetic fashions; there are many of them, as well as people who are trying to do this.

- I’m talking, rather, about what interests the so-called mass reader.

It’s hard to say... By the masses, they also most likely mean themselves. Let’s say there are a hundred of them or five hundred, that’s already it! One hundred people come to one evening - that’s already a lot! And the fact that they are, if not friends, then friends, is somehow not taken into account. It’s funny to talk about the mass reader now, but seriously, probably such nomenklatura Soviet graphomaniacs like Dementyev have one. IN provincial cities anyway. You can go to any store, and here we have books by Dementyev, Asadov, Mikhalkov, that is, the Soviet literary nomenklatura.

Omnivorous environment

How important is the so-called literary environment for a poet? Can he work away from literary processes?

I'm afraid that my view of all this is very contrary to the generally accepted view. For example, there is the city of Moscow, where people come from everywhere, hang out, perform, and so on. I see how all this happens, and it seems to me that nothing affects the poet worse than the literary environment. The tastes of this environment are very average, the requirements are very average, and it accepts almost anyone. A person in this environment, voluntarily or involuntarily, focuses on this very mediocre level and joins the ranks of famous mediocrities. That is, it is very easy to become a star or an asterisk there, so there are a huge number of these stars, but all this has very little to do with real literature. Twenty years will pass, another generation will come, these people will be forgotten, the environment will simply change, people will change a little.

-Can you name the names of real poets?

I can name it, and with great pleasure. Well, Irina Ermakova, of course, Maxim Amelin, perhaps, well, Oleg Chukhontsev, Mikhail Shcherbakov, although he plays a guitar, he is still a very great poet. Yes, that's probably all.

- And how do you distinguish a great poet from a famous mediocrity? The criteria are interesting.

It is clear that I am guided by my own taste, which is probably biased. But it’s very simple: besides the fact that a person must be able to do this, besides the fact that he must be original, besides the fact that he must not be a fool, when reading his poems I should get a thrill. There must be some kind of aesthetic fulfillment in this. You can say: beautiful or ugly, regardless of the criteria. Just watch and be amazed. And if I don’t get a buzz, then it’s still... well, hack work.

Reduced genius

“It seems to me that everyone is irritated by this now, by this, as Koval said, “reduced genius.”

Well, actually, not all, oddly enough. I, for one, am annoyed. It still seems to me that coffee and instant coffee, or even diamonds and jewelry, are different things, and they should be sold in different departments. It annoys me that now they are sold in the same store and have the same name. But some people are not indignant at all about all this: well, yes, they write nonsense, but they could even steal and rob.

- Maybe the processes that are happening now will take on a new quality, something interesting?

I don't think. Rather, everything is heading towards some kind of attenuation, which is in fact completely natural. Russian prose has died, but it exists somewhere else. It’s just that Russia has ceased to be the literary center of the world, it has become a literary province, this is natural. Once Greek literature died, Roman literature died. This is fine.

- You moved from Moscow to Kostroma - how did this affect the cultural content of the city? Usually a lot changes when such a person appears in the city.

This, I must admit, is a very sad question, because when I came here, I thought so too. It turned out that this was not the case. I haven't changed anything here, although I tried somehow. I am an inconspicuous person here, no one knows me here, and, unfortunately, I do not influence the cultural appearance of our city. No way.

Reference

Ivan Volkov - laureate of the awards. Boris Pasternak (2002), named after. Boris Sokolov (2004), international literary award “Lerici Pea-Moscow” (2010). His poems are published in the magazines “Znamya”, “October”, “Volga” (Saratov), ​​“Bell” (London), “SHO” (Kyiv), and translated into English, Chinese, Japanese, Italian.

In 2004, Volkov implemented one of the most successful literary projects in Russia - “Polyus” (a performance by two different poets on the same platform) and was its first presenter.

* * *

Not beauty, not money and not gods,
But women's discernment will save
Our world is unhappy, lost on the road:
When none of the women will go

For journalists, career military personnel,
Bad poets, righteous thieves -
These positions will no longer be despised,
And to deserve your friends,

We'll all get down to real business
Let's forget about the barracks and prison...
But women don't need peace in general.
They save us one by one.

PHYSICIST AND LYRICIST

- Grigory Dmitrievich, you graduated from Moscow State University and are a physicist by training...

Yes, a physicist, that’s absolutely true, one might say that he’s a mathematician too.

How did it happen that after graduating from such a serious department of such a powerful university and working in Russian Academy Sciences, you still left science and plunged headlong into translations from French, English, and became a poet?

This is heredity. My mother is a great scholar of literature. Since childhood it was easy for me foreign languages. In Moscow, while still a child, I studied at a French school. And when I entered Moscow State University, at the same time I worked to obtain a diploma as an assistant-translator and studied English. And I received it.

You can often hear from people of your generation that love for words was salvation during the Soviet Union...

Absolutely. I really love doing science - physics, mathematics, but poetry, translations - this has always been my salvation, I have always done this in parallel with my main work.

- Did you pee on the table?

There was no other way. Since I never accepted anything Soviet, I never used the “locomotive” rule. You know, right? When you write a short poem glorifying the Soviet system, communist party, you are allowed to publish, and with a trailer in this collection you slap your real poems - the work of your soul, your heart. I never allowed myself to do this.

You came to Kaliningrad for the opening of the Snegov library after renovation. Don’t you think that you and Sergei Alexandrovich have something in common?

The biographical and lyrical similarities can certainly be traced. He is a physicist, I am a physicist, he became an outstanding writer, I am true to my word. And we are close in spirit. At least, what I read from him, and I’ll be honest, not everything I read, is clear to me.

GRINDED THE POETIC PROCESS

You ask yourself the question - why are there no great poets in Russia today? Sorry if I offended you with this question...

Everything is fine. The trouble, you know, is... The reduction of the poetic process. Everyone is fragmented, disunited. And in parties (I don’t like this word, it’s terrible, I don’t like it) they glorify and promote poets from the same group. And there is no unifying force over all the groups.

- Is she needed? Can it somehow affect the appearance of the value?

In conditions of fragmentation, it is impossible to find out what is happening in the next party. No one has today objective picture, what modern poets are doing and what is happening with modern poetry.

- Do you have like-minded people?

Undoubtedly. There are many poets and writers. We found each other by sound, by hearing. This is very rare occurrence. Here's a case I'll tell you. Once I was in Konstantinovo, the homeland of Sergei Yesenin, there was an evening where I read my dedication to Sergei Yesenin for the first time. After this, Alexey Shorokhov came up to me and said that my poems are an example of spiritual lyrics. And now Alexey and I have been friends, communicate, and have been working together for many years. And it’s very nice when you are surrounded by professionals who understand you.

- Are there many talented, bright poets in Russia today?

I can name two or three dozen names.

- Where can you get acquainted with their poems?

On the portal “Prologue”, “Ring A”.

- Tell us, what do you, as a poet, spend your energy on today?

I'm working on the form of the poem. This is a very difficult task. It is important to create new forms and promote them in the media space.

Of course, of course. This is an unconditional component. But the form of the verse today requires more attention.

- It’s true what they say that in order to write brilliant poetry, you need to know mathematics perfectly...

There is some truth to this. Even the great Russian poet Alexander Blok spoke about the mathematics of the line. But, believe me, the process of writing poems depends not only on knowledge of mathematics.

- Are you close to the poetry of the Silver Age?

Studying the works of Blok and Balmont is generally my life. Many of my literary cycles are devoted to this. Recently I gave a month-and-a-half series of lectures at one of the largest universities in Turkey, where I spoke about Blok. One of my tasks is to return the spirit and honor to the poet. There is a point of view that Blok is decadence. But in fact, even if we switch to the language of mathematics, out of 1200 poems written by the poet, only five can be attributed to this direction. There is no decline or regression in Blok! That’s why I’m talking about the image of the Mother of God in Blok’s works. By the way, my lecture in Gdansk, at international readings, where I am going from Kaliningrad as part of a large delegation, will be devoted to this.

You know, I recently had a creative evening, my colleagues and friends came. And so they are somehow unanimous in the opinion that I managed to tie the departing Silver Age with today's century, having passed the Soviet era. I was so touched by this assessment. Because I think it’s extremely important to comprehend the Silver Age. Without this we will not be able to go further.

TWO RUSSIA WILL MEET IN THE SKY

I'm interested in learning from you, as a translator from French, English. Are these languages ​​subject to the same process that occurs with the Russian language? In academic circles this is called “our language tends to simplify”, this is when the lines between slang and business speech, there is a saturation of borrowings, vulgarization...

I can say for sure for the French - they take great care of their language. As for Russia, our country is huge, the people live are different, but it is philologists, linguists, writers, artists, musicians who bear this enormous responsibility - to preserve the purity and power of the Russian language. No one else will do this, and no one else should. I sometimes feel like an Atlantean, carrying on my shoulders a huge burden of responsibility for preserving the spirit, the word in Russia... In general, I believe that today there are two Russias. One is the slag that kills us and oppresses us. And the second Russia is a country that has not really gone anywhere, it is alive, it is developing, everything is fine with it. Because a person in Russia cannot agree only with the role of an appendage of civilization. In addition, there is a spirit alive in each of us.

- Are these two Russias destined to meet?

PERSONAL MATTER

Grigory Pevtsov, 54 years old.

Poet, literary and art critic, translator, member of the Moscow Writers' Union. Born in Moscow. Graduated from Moscow State University. M. V. Lomonosov. Author of several poetry books, including “Above the Abyss of a Moment” (Moscow, 2007), “Call of Eternity” (Veliko Tarnovo, 2009). Winner of the international competition “Literary Vienna – 2008” (Grand Prix in the “Poetry” category).

Translator of French and English poetry.

Member of the jury of a number of all-Russian and international literary festivals.

Regular participant literary programs state radio companies.

Recently, a poetry duel took place between an official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry and an opposition “poetry columnist.” I was pleasantly surprised by such relationships between the authorities and the opposition. That’s why I also wrote a poetic commentary on this controversy.
I do not consider myself a poet, although I have written down 1145 verses. A poet is not someone who writes poetry. A poet is someone who thinks in poetry! Who can capture and poetically express moods, thoughts and feelings in a rhyming manner and sometimes in free verse.
The poetic duel between the authorities and the opposition once again made us think: what is the difference between a poet and a person who writes poetry, and what are poets for in general?
With this question I came to the “Poetry Championship”, which was held at the Mayakovsky Library in St. Petersburg - in former house Dutch envoy during the time of Pushkin. To my question “why are poets needed”, I received very interesting answers.

“Poets are needed to decorate this world. Poets share the treasure of their souls. With a word you can kill, with a word you can resurrect. That's why great importance has what we say. Because the soul and high thought are put into the word of poetry. The space that surrounds us really lacks beautiful words, beautiful, lofty thoughts. If a person radiates such thoughts, then he will work to create our space, our Earth, humanity.”

“Poets are a necessity! These are the people who cannot help but write poetry. They are needed for this to happen. Poetic form is primordial in man.”

“Poets are not needed. From an economic point of view, these are people who do not produce anything material. From an idealistic point of view, if they produce something, it is far from a mass product, something for a very narrow audience.”

“Poets are needed for themselves. Poetry is a very bright way of communication. There is an idea that you cannot put your brain and your soul into another person. Poets can do this!”

“Today a poet is a word, an ability to speak. Poetry is a locomotive. Poets are people who seek new opportunities for us to speak. They are looking beyond our classical language constructs. They are looking for new feelings, they are looking for new sensations, completely incredible and incomprehensible phenomena. They clearly formulate, structure, and explain for us. We don't even always understand what these feelings are. It is always a locomotive, an icebreaker of everything incomprehensible that is inexplicable to us. Where science with its method will never reach. That's why poetry is valuable.
If poetry dies, it means that we have stopped in our development, turned off all feelings and are sitting and devouring ourselves. This means that we are close to being decomposed and leveled to the ground, and later turned into oil, to be used by someone else later.
Therefore, poetry is the ability to speak and express oneself. And self-expression is one of the basic human needs. And it is best realized in poetry. Poetry is the ability to say the most simple phrases when the sum of the words is greater than the terms.”

“Poets are feeling people who want to talk about their feelings, want to draw attention to certain current problems other people. They don't want to remain indifferent. They care!”

“Poets state what is happening in society now. They are an emotional slice of history that is now in at the moment is happening."
…
What is difficult in our time,
If there is a head on the neck,
It’s worth sowing through the prism of thought
Such a phenomenon as words.
…
How to tear yourself apart,
To live under a mask, to climb into a noose,
Scold the regime, caress the authorities,
No, I don't like all this...

“Not all things can be expressed in prose. Some things can only be expressed through poetry."

“I need poetry to express my thoughts. I just think like that in poetry. Not everyone thinks in prose. A poet is one who expresses his thoughts through poetry.”

“Poetry, like other forms of art, helps to establish connections, to better understand each other.”

“I need poetry for my soul, to understand myself better.”

“Poetry is for nothing. This is a certain phenomenon that has been present in culture since the beginning of the emergence of language.”

“Poetry is much more of a concept than one can understand. It's not just putting words together to rhyme or being poetic. For me, poetry is one of the ways of expressing one’s ideas and thoughts.”

“How it was sung. Let's not be loud.
I'm not used to loud words.
I'm threading my soul into a needle
And I darn the bed of the Neva...”

There is a good movie "Dead Poets Society". It is about how death for a poet can be sweeter than living not in accordance with one’s destiny.

What attracts you to poetry? After all, not only with pleasant rhymes and consonance of words. In my opinion, poetry is not so much rhymes as a concentrated and figuratively expressed THOUGHT!

Primary religious texts existed in the form of poetic hymns. Ancient literary works this is poetry (Homer's Iliad and Odyssey). Prose was not considered literature. Yes by by and large doesn't count even now.

There is an opinion that after the cancellation ritual sacrifice, contact with the other world was lost. In the absence of the supernatural, the need arose to produce the super-artificial. This super-artificial, in my opinion, has become poetry - our “residual spirituality”.

Poetry was a form of revelation and communication with the gods. All primary sacred texts are poetic hymns. In ancient times, the poet and the priest were one person. It was believed that poetry is both a gift and a curse, and the gods prophesy through the lips of the poet.

In a state of inspired ecstasy and obsession, poets possessed the properties of otherness and prophecy; they felt themselves at the mercy of otherworldly forces. The poet became permeable to the narrow entrance to the original source of knowledge, where the sphere of comprehensibility of existence opened before him.

But in order to penetrate into the intelligibility of the world, complete detachment from one’s nature is necessary. Poets must live in a state of detachment and detachment from the world. To come into contact with the otherworldly, an altered state of consciousness is required. To do this, you need to turn to your piece of the otherworldly, which is in every person.

Transformation of Homo sapiens ( Homo Sapiens) into a spiritual person (Homo Spiritus) occurred as a result of some kind of anthropological catastrophe (possibly the Fall, expulsion from Paradise). As a result, a person acquired the soul and conscience necessary for contact with the otherworldly.

Recently I attended a lecture by the famous philosopher Alexander Kupriyanovich Sekatsky about the modern thinker Wolfgang Gigerich. It seemed to me that the described metaphysics of Gigerich, his characteristics of a “reactor for the production of the soul” correspond to such a phenomenon as poetry.

It seems to me that the “reactor for the production of the soul” is a person’s ability to art, and only poetry provides an entrance into the intelligibility of the world. It is poetry, as a part of art, that synthesizes a person’s existence.

The “Golden Fund of Poetry” is the golden reserve of the existence of humanity!

Poetry is both absolutely unreal and absolutely real, something that can be discussed with others.
Poetry is an introduction to the original source of knowledge, where the order of madness precedes the order of reason.

True Poetry is a spiritual sacrifice, a unique form of being for another.
Therefore, it is poetry that creates the “complete set of the soul.”

Example - “Monologue of the rebellious soul of the Russian poet” by Anatoly Chertenkov
…
I was suffocating, having found myself in a cruel world,
And he collected my tears.
And turned them into letters and lines,
And he built the temple on his own blood.

And if it happened that there were not enough words,
And the walls were erected somehow,
He broke everything, started all over again:
And again pain and foam on the lips!

He rushed upward, broke down, fell into the abyss,
But I forgave everything, I understood:

But there is no hope, there is no existence!
…

The thought of Being and the thought of God are two main events in human history. This is what the famous philosopher Alexander Nikolaevich Isakov thinks. I recently attended a course of his lectures under the general title “Thought as an Event.”
A.N. Isakov believes that thought as an event is Revelation. Consciousness recognizes Revelation as a revelation of itself.

In my opinion, THOUGHT itself is an event and a Revelation!
Because it is completely unclear where unexpected thoughts come from, how and why inspiration comes to us.
A thought is like a discovery. It is not always the result of logical conclusions and reasoning; not always the fruit of rational activity.
Sometimes at first we experience an incomprehensible languor or excitement, and only then INSIGHT illuminates us, and we suddenly understand something that we were thinking about intensely or never thought about.
Almost always Revelation comes as an answer. If, of course, the question is formulated correctly. Moreover, the answer is always formulated in a complete perfect form.

Distinctive feature The revelation is that there is no doubt about it. This is a thought perfect in its completeness and brevity, when it is simply impossible to say better. At the same time, you clearly realize that this is not your achievement, it came from outside, from above.

In my opinion, poetry is one of the ways to connect with the transcendent. Even the ancients believed that poets spoke with the gods, and poetry is the voice of the gods.

Real poetry is both a subjective revelation and an objective revelation.

Our “I” is only a conscious part of our personality, only the surface part of the iceberg of our being.

Poetry is the discovery and comprehension of oneself as a subject.
Subject and object are a speculative division. We must overcome this logical division in order to understand that the object is also a subject, and the subject, in turn, is an object - and we are all-unity!
…
The world is Me, the planets are blood cells,
Galaxies are part of my body,
And the heart beats - someone longs for pain,
I am happy - I have comprehended the Meaning of Everything!
I became a particle of the meaning of the universe -
And my life now has meaning.
I can’t stop myself from exclaiming:
I am a part of God, I am God, I am His thought!

Recently I participated in a philosophical discussion “Why a philosopher in lean times”, organized by the European University in St. Petersburg and the Open Faculty of Philosophy. As “homework”, it was suggested to read Martin Heidegger’s essay “What are poets for?”
Since few people have read the work of M. Heidegger, it was practically not discussed. But I read Heidegger’s work and formulated my answer to why poets are needed in “scarce times.”

In the essay “What Poets Are For,” Martin Heidegger wrote:
“Poets are those mortals who, solemnly chanting Vinobog, sense the trail of the departed gods, follow their trail and thus pave the way for conversion for the rest of mortals.”

“It is characteristic of the essence of a poet, a true poet in such a time of the world, that out of all the poverty of time, the creative question for him becomes, first of all, poetic creativity and the vocation of a poet.”

Martin Heidegger

“Poetry is the institution of being in the word,” writes Heidegger. He calls poetry “pure speech.” Poetry does not talk about what happened, does not describe what is happening, with its word it creates being.

Heidegger says that poets, like philosophers, are the guardians of the house of being, that is, language.
The artist almost never speaks about himself in the first person in his works; thought speaks through him.

How deep does poetry descend into the abyss? Where does the poet go, if, of course, he goes where he is able to reach? - Heidegger asks rhetorically, analyzing Rilke’s work.
Rilke, in his own poetic way, cognized and experienced the unconcealment of existence that had thus developed.

“The higher the level of consciousness, the more excluded from the world the conscious being appears.” That is why man opposes the world.

“Language is the house of being. Man lives in the dwelling of the tongue. Thinkers and poets are the guardians of this home. Their guard is the realization of the openness of being, so they give it a voice in their speech, thereby preserving it in language.”

“Speech and silence can be likened to existence and being. Being is both what exists and what is not. Silence is the same: it both evokes speech and sublates it in the all-encompassing solemnity of truth.”

In my opinion, the very title of M. Heidegger’s work “What are poets for?” speaks of his recognition of primacy poetic creativity over the philosophical. The philosopher only reflects on what is created by the poet’s inspiration, finds and deciphers meanings in an intuitive poetic image.

It is unlikely that any philosopher will be able to portray Hell as convincingly as Dante did in The Divine Comedy.

If it is true that “philosophers read the message of God in the original,” then, in my opinion, philosophers rationally comprehend the message that comes in the form of some kind of intuition. Philosophy deals with the reflection of the original revelation. The mind comprehends what the soul knows.

On April 8, 2016, I participated in the All-Russian scientific and practical conference “HOMO LOQUENS: LANGUAGE AND CULTURE”. It took place at the Russian Christian Humanitarian Academy in St. Petersburg. I was interested in the question: who and how can save the Russian language from expansion English language in the era of globalization?

In my opinion, poets are the spirit of a nation! Therefore, first of all, poets can preserve the Russian language (this is our “house of being”, according to Heidegger). Without language there can be no culture, without culture there is no nation, and without a nation there is no country. Saving the Russian language means saving Russia!

Heidegger was clearly in a hurry when he declared that the End of philosophy had come and another Beginning was approaching.

Where is the beginning of the end with which the beginning ends?

Now we are experiencing not the end of philosophy, but another crisis as a transition from the old worldview to a new one.
We don't know what time we live in. But we clearly feel the approaching twilight.
But is it the twilight of dawn or the twilight of sunset?

Poets can describe twilight more adequately than philosophers. Only poets can expose time in its ontological illusoryness - the unique repetition in the changing seasons.

“Philosophy is truth in the mode of revelation.” This is a decoding of the initial surprise, that same initial intuition that comes as an unconscious image, which was Plato’s IDEA.
Plato considered pure philosophical contemplation of ideas to be the highest form of knowledge, a way of ascent to higher ideas.

It can be assumed that Plato’s World of Ideas is an information field (by analogy with the Internet), which includes the Earth - a kind of “universal Internet”. Ancient Hindus called it “Akashic Records”, and Christians called it “The Holy Spirit”. All information about the past, present and, possibly, future of not only our civilization, but also all previous ones is stored there.

Several years ago, at the Faculty of Philology and Arts of St. Petersburg state university I took part in a discussion of the problems of modern poetry. According to the participants, only poetry, by and large, can be called literature.

I asked those present a question: what is a poet?
It turned out, precise definition does not exist. However, everyone has their own opinion.

The poet is not rational, he is intuitive. The poet is strong not in his consciousness, but in his subconscious.
The poet speaks as he hears with his heart!

The purpose of poetry is to return to the heart. Poetry, used as a tool for understanding the world, does not pretend to be objective. Understanding existence is not the goal of poetry.

Why were poets in demand during the Khrushchev Thaw?
Yes, because they could tell the people the truth in an accessible way!

I remember how in 1992, at a cultural forum in St. Petersburg, which was held in the Tauride Palace, I met Bella Akhmadulina. Here she was - she was a Poet!

And recently I met with the poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko. It was he who wrote the famous words “A poet in Russia is more than a poet.” Evgeniy Aleksandrovich even answered several of my questions.

Personally, I believe that poetry exists not for the sake of poetry, but to express those higher ideas and meanings that are inaccessible to rational logical knowledge, which come to us from another world and connect our worlds.

A poet should not so much embody already known ideas in his work as comprehend new meanings.

The whole question is in the scale of ideas and meanings comprehended by the poet. If they are deep and viable, then they do not need government support, they will germinate on their own.

Only poetry has access to some ideas and meanings that are inaccessible to philosophy and science. And this is the enormous responsibility of poetry.

Poetry is not an end in itself. Although she is self-sufficient.
Poetry is not entertainment. Anniversary poems and rhyming are not poetry. Poetry is a way of knowledge, a form of comprehension of Revelation!

Real poems are thought forms.
Words are forms of images, and therefore they are not sought out, but come along with the images, being only a means of expression.
If I manage to formulate a question in the first lines, then I just write down the answer, which rhymes by itself.

True creativity is an exposition, because it is not from oneself.
Real poems are not composed, but written down.
When I want to compose something myself, nothing comes out, but when I try to tune in and feel it, the stanzas are born by themselves. And sometimes in such a complete form that I am simply amazed. I don’t understand why and how this happens. This is as much a revelation for me as it is for others.

Of course, creativity is inspired by God. This is the process of receiving divine revelation - Salvation, which the Lord sends by inspiration. But inspiration is given only to those who deserve it, and not at all in order to make money from it. Inspiration is a reward for faith and the Lord’s help to those who need it.

True art is selfless, because it is from God!

Feelings, the artist’s mood is not empty, this is a game of inspiration, labyrinths creative process. Inspiration is irrational. Without inspiration there is no creativity. But it requires faith!

Poems are a statement, not a composition. The words cannot be found. Each word, if it is the same, it is inevitable, it is only that, and no other.

Do you know how a line is dictated by a feeling? I feel it as a kind of excitement, like music that I try to express with words.
Words are untranslatable because they are an attempt to express a feeling, an image that exists uniquely only in a given culture, in the language of a given people.

Each poem is a cosmogony, and therefore unique and untranslatable!

The process of creativity is important, not its product. The point is not in literary delights, but in comprehending the innermost. The worst thing is if they say: before he wrote with inspiration, but now he wrote beautifully; talent has turned into skill.

My poems, with all their possible value, are only a means of cutting the soul. But I know, I know that all this is not mine, and I have never written poetry before. They are a revelation for myself. And where did the inspiration come from? Why?

Inspiration, this is such happiness! It's worth everything! If I were given a choice: Nobel Prize or inspiration, I would choose inspiration!

It is important for me to be extremely honest with myself, in my dreams and in reality, so that I am interesting to myself and firmly know that I will not lie. But man is structured in such a way that life dictates existence. But I don't want to be calm. I need everything or nothing! No, I am not a function of conditions, and I am not a slave of circumstances. I want to be worthy of myself, to admit honestly, since I’m wrong. Life requires you to look for convenience, paying for life untruthfully. But it’s not my comfort that guides me, but the Voice that sounds within me. He demands to be extremely honest in every word and in trouble, and not to look for a warm place, but only to be sincere everywhere. I don’t care about fears and losses, threats to me to live in poverty. I don’t want the convenience of the goal; it’s more important for me not to lie to myself. Freedom is more important to me than money, love is more important than calculation. I need a shore of sincerity. Everything else doesn’t count!

An artist creates the world, he is a demiurge, he is a god,
He hears the call of Heaven, he catches the Muse's syllable.
And the Lord demands that there be only one poet,
Both at home and in the family, although he is not unsociable.
And therefore the poet runs away from unnecessary words,
From vulgar vanity, family squabbles, worries,
Away from thoughts about food, sex, noise!
He should be alone, his girlfriend is the night.
He is a subtle instrument of divine principles,
And the Verb demands that the poet remain silent.
The artist is a slave of the Muse, his Spirit is jealous,
Those who serve give everything, and others - nothing.
The poet will not do what God does not give him,
And he must remember about his last hour.
Do not invent something that is not in the World of Ideas,
And to create, you need to love people,
And believe in what God says to the poet,
After all, a true poet does not create on his own.
How little is needed for an artist to create:
Peace for the soul, freedom from worries.
But creativity is always a feat for the soul -
Overcome yourself and make your dreams come true.
The artist sees what many cannot see,
He sees the future through a glass darkly,
Trying to unravel God's Meaning in creation,
And to announce to the world what is to become.
The artist is a prophet, the poet is doubly a prophet,
He proclaims what Fate wants.
He sacrifices himself so that the Lord will do it to them,
The poet lives so that God can create peace for them.
He does not dare to ask, because he has a gift,
He creates with his soul, and is not a slave to the body's needs.
He asks for silence so that he can hear God's voice,
And he creates dreams that are so necessary for us.
You don’t need comfort either - it will ruin your talent! -
All you need is silence, and only bread, and sleep.
Convenience is not the goal, but so that he can create,
Here money is not important, because you can’t buy Muses,
Don't beg for poetry, don't beg for love,
After all, inspiration is a gift, hard work of the soul.
A poet is not appreciated while he lives among us,
But he will become famous as soon as he dies.
It serves as a reproach for those who are asleep in their souls.
He is a wanderer on Earth, he is strange, he is a stranger.
The poet is a servant of Heaven, an instrument of the Creator,
God is in the faces of all creators, and He is without a face.
Adversity is the bread of the soul, and an incentive for us to grow,
And to become a poet, you must thank them.
A poet is always a fighter, an artist and a hero.
And God tells them. He is only his own to God!
(from my true-life novel “The Wanderer” (mystery) on the New Russian Literature website

Some Moscow celebrities come to St. Petersburg to teach our poets versification for money. But St. Petersburg poets do not need Moscow “teachers” who come to the cultural capital “to do their job”...
April 8, 2016 at former premises The Smolninsky bakery, and now the loft project ETAGI, hosted the Great City Poetry Festival.

If there are poets, then there is hope!
But there is no hope, there is no existence!

In your opinion, WHY ARE POETS NEEDED?

© Nikolay Kofirin – New Russian Literature –

Why in the poetry of N.A. Nekrasov, are the fates of women the most tragic?

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Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov, as you know, is a kind of personification in Russian literature citizenship and nationality. Most of his poems are dedicated to the difficult life of ordinary peasants, deprived of any rights and freedoms. However, the most tragic in the poetry of N.A. Nekrasov are the fates of women. So why do difficult trials befall us? such fragile and defenseless creatures?

There are probably several explanations for this. Firstly, everyone knows that N.A. Nekrasov carried memories of his beautiful mother throughout his life, eternally suffering due to the fault of a tyrannical and domineering father. “She was filled with sadness...” the poet writes about her in the poem “Mother.” This is how he seems to remember her forever. This weak, helpless, but at the same time proud and loving woman, I think, was the prototype of those heroines who a little later were embodied in the poetry of N.A. Nekrasova. However, it seems to me that there is still one difference between them. “Don’t cry..., martyr mother!” - the poet asks and begs. Using rhetorical appeal and calling his mother a "martyr", he is trying to characterize her state of mind, show the reader how she suffers, often cries from the cruelty and injustice of the world around her, while the heroines N.A. Nekrasova never complain about fate, do not demonstrate their weakness. So, in the poem “Yesterday, at about six o’clock...” the poet writes about how, entering the Sennaya, he saw a “young peasant woman” who was being beaten with a whip:

"Not a sound from her chest,

Only the whip whistled as it played..."

Criteria

• 1 of 3 K1 Depth of understanding of the topic and persuasiveness of the arguments
• 0 of 2 K2 Level of theoretical and literary knowledge
• 2 of 3 K3 Validity of using the text of the work
• 2 of 3 K4 Compositional integrity and consistency of presentation
• 1 of 3 K5 Following speech norms
• TOTAL: 6 out of 14