Anthologist: Pavel Zarutskiy
Translators: Katerina Basova, Eleni Katsioli, Pavel Zarutskiy
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Rostislav Amelin, Pavel Arseniev, Sergey Geychenko, Anna Zolotareva, Kirill Korchagin, Alexei Kudrikov, Eduard Lukoyanov, Denis Beznosov, Vladimir Belyaev, Galina Rymbu, Ivan Sokolov, Eugenia Suslova.
The poems of Anna Zolotareva and Vladimir Belyaev translated by Katerina Basova. The poems of Ivan Sokolov and Eugenia Suslova translated by Pavel Zarutskiy. The poems of Rostislav Amelin, Pavel Arseniev, Sergey Geychenko, Kirill Korchagin, Alexei Kudrikov, Eduard Lukoyanov, Denis Beznosov, Galina Rymbu translated by Eleni Katsioli.
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It would seem that in contemporary Russian poetry, the gap between high and mainstream poetry has been replaced by an even larger gap created by “Internet poetry”, a sort of blogging that mixes elements of poetry, very frequently influenced by the works of Joseph Brodsky, and the style of social media posts. However, this poetry is neither a parallel universe, nor a style of poetry based on the pursuits of movements from the past century. “Internet Poetry” emerged from the Russian social network medium “vk.com” that plays a significant role in the social life of Russians, similar to the role played by Facebook in other countries. The main characteristic of this poetry is the speed of production, which aims at keeping the attention of readers. In this way, the most talented representatives of this type of poetry (mostly young women) manage to gather a lot of people in their soirées. In contrast, “literary” poetry is united in appearance only; in reality, this category of poetry also features different movements with different theoretical backgrounds.
The main source of influence of contemporary Russian poetry is Soviet “unofficial art” (otherwise known as nonconformist art) from the ‘70’s, marked by the aesthetics of Samizdat (private publications of limited circulation that were distributed by hand – most often illegally) and the aversion its representatives expressed towards the official and ideological literature and its typical language. New poetry, in particular, was influenced by the two principal trends of that era: the poetry of conceptualism (especially by the poems of Dmitri Prigov), with the unusual and ironic use of language clichés and its emphasis on the writer’s pretense, and the “language-centered” approach of Arkadii Dragomoshchenko. As regards the second trend, the poet Ivan Sokolov has remarked in one of his articles that juxtaposition, a typical characteristic of Dragomoshchenko’s style, became a fetish for new Russian poetry. We should also stress the revolutionary nature of this type of poetry, which is marked by the absence of established conventions between poet and reader; it is clear that poetry no longer proposes any answers to the reader’s supposed questions.
According to theorist and poet Kyrill Korchagin, poetic writing features three strategies: when tradition speaks through the poet’s voice, when the poet emphasizes his or her own presence through the work, and when the everyday rituals of speech function within the text. In Korchagin’s poetry, language structures form a space in whose midst memory exists independently and forbids any intervention from the part of the author. Eugenia Suslova points out that “Korchagin, examines things in his poetry that are scary to mention, thus creating the poetics of Nuremberg”. The function of language itself is also apparent in Suslova’s work, albeit in a different way. In her poems, the page is transformed into a screen; behind it, words, similar to a mathematical code, create not a universe, but some kind of essence, which is equally inquisitive towards its readers. The writer’s absence is probably more noticeable in the poetry of Denis Beznosov. Nationality, both as concept and as sense, is completely absent in his poems, while the absurd, coupled with the absence of man in a world of things, makes readers feel as voyeurs of some kind of strange ritual.
In a similar manner, poetic tradition can be approached in different ways. In Alexei Kudrikov’s poems, the combination of metric elegance and archaisms brings the present into conflict with the past in a timeless subspace. If, however, Kudrikov views the past as existing within the present, Anna Zolotareva makes a distinction of “now and then”. Her poems build a labyrinth where the passage of time ceases to be linear and the voices of artists from the past are brought together in a polyphony that also includes the voice of the poet herself. Vladimir Belyaev explores how the traditional narrative style functions in different contexts. This particular poet acts in different levels; for example, he creates a series of wooden planks by making collages from old newspaper articles, thus transforming the initial instructivism of the Media into poetic language of art. In Belyaev’s urban actionism, as well as in his written works, the sense of space, either in a physical or metaphysical sense, plays a very important role.
Contexts unfold their political potential in Pavel Arseniev’s poems. In his view, contemporary writing techniques are less important than the techniques of reading. In his works (for example, in his series of poems called “ready-writtens”), the poet-Arseniev identifies himself with the reader-Arseniev. The correlation between creator and reader and the absence of established roles in his poetry, as well as in his performances and installations, begin a discussion in the context of the political and poetic left; nevertheless, he neither tries to teach, nor suggests any answers. Political subjects appear differently in the works of anarchist Eduard Lukoyanov, possibly the most radical poet of the new generation. Lukoyanov’s provocative, “scathing” – as described by Arseniev – writing, along with its creator’s thoughts, “traverse” the world, and these journeys are neither touristic, nor blissful: in his poetry, Chechnya, Palestine, Chad and Kenya are merely the beginning of a long geographical list. His poem “Motherland” contains the following verses: “And I wish to add / that without Hitler we wouldn’t see the sun / and without Franco, we wouldn’t breathe / yet we breathe your air, Motherland / and we gaze at the golden disk set high in the sky by the national socialists”. The concept of “we” is fundamental, both for this poem and for Lukoyanov’s poetry in general. The poet seems to wonder whether the distinction between “we” and “them” exists when fascism is still alive, when bombs continue to fall. In addition, he wonders whether there exist borders separating the guilty from the innocent. Feminism, which is present in the poetry of Galina Rymbu, is yet another important political tendency in new Russian poetry. Her poems follow two writing strategies: the first strategy, which is more abstract and language-centered, focuses on the process of writing and creating a poetic language; the other strategy, which is more narrative, goes beyond the linguistic problems of violence and describes its forms, which the oppressed face in their daily lives.
Rostislav Amelin attempts, in a very interesting manner, to reload poetry with new approaches. His works are free of any obvious references to tradition and avant-garde experimentation. Nevertheless, the interaction between narrative prose and fragmented and short verses brings forth a new form of poetry that desires to avoid classification. Sergey Geychenko is yet another poet who stands outside trends. His activity falls between Internet poetry and poetic avant-garde. As a member of the video art group “The Salmon’s Jump”, also due to being a musician, Geychenko appears more convincing when he himself presents his texts, when he is given the opportunity to present his texts on his own. It is not by chance that his first book was published after he participated in the YouTube internet poetry show “Babushka Pushkina” (Pushkin’s Grandmother).
Although the question of whether avant-garde poetry exists in the twenty-first century is still open – on account that there also exists the prevailing absurd notion of “avant-garde tradition” – Ivan Sokolov’s poetry is avant-garde in the sense that it is in a process of constant and ongoing search. In his extended poem The Hunt, which he currently composes, the poet focuses his attention on the page as independent poetic medium. The poet moves beyond the connection of the written and the unspoken within the page; using foreign languages and visual elements, Sokolov creates a sophisticated and elegant poetic structure that suggests a mode of reading “from within”. In this way, the reader, by following the footsteps of the narration through the processes of recognition and discovery, takes part in a poetic sacred hunt.
It goes without saying that no anthology can fully depict the situation. This anthology is no exception, no less because many important names are missing from its pages, such as Lev Oborin, Ekaterina Zaharkiv, Roman Osminkin, Anton Ochirov and many others. I do believe, however, that this book is capable of giving its readers a view into the poetic explorations that take place in today’s Russia.
Pavel Zarutskiy