Most people are familiar with poetry. However, not everyone likes this kind of literature creativity. Is it really necessary for a person to be fond of poetry? It is about this issue that the author speaks in his text, posing to the reader the problem of the need to cultivate a love for reading poetry.
Arguing over this, E.A. Yevtushenko says that the charm of poetry lies in the overflow of intonations, in metaphors and epithets of verse. The enjoyment of the word and the ability to “feel it with the skin” are for the author a real reading of the artistic word. The author recalls how he read his poems to Stravinsky. At this point, he draws attention to the composer's remark: "What a delicious line." Yevtushenko is sure that there is a poetic ear that can and should be cultivated.
It is hard not to agree with E.A. Yevtushenko.
I share his position and believe that the love of poetry makes a person's life more interesting and fulfilling.
A few lines of a poem can convey an idea that is presented in prose on several pages. That, in my opinion, is the beauty of poetry. Let us turn to the stanzas of A.S. Pushkin's poem "Anchar".
But man man
He sent to the Anchar with an imperious look,
And he obediently flowed on the way
And by morning he returned with poison.
The poet in this quatrain accurately and very succinctly shows that the slave is not only a victim, but also evil.
Poetry instills in man a love of nature and thus allows people to exist harmoniously with surrounding the world. An excerpt from Tyutchev's poem is a vivid example of this.
The air is empty, the birds are no longer heard,
But far from the first winter storms -
And pure and warm azure pours
In conclusion, it is worth noting that the choice - to love or not to love poetry - remains only with the person himself. However, reading poetry brings people pleasure and happiness.
Why poetry has been losing its former importance in society in recent years and will it ever gain it again, the famous Russian poet reflects
Before the anniversary of the opening Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum, October 19, "NV" talks with the poet, editor-in-chief of the almanac "Poetry Day - XXI century", laureate of the Russian government prize Andrey Shatskov.
- Andrey Vladislavovich, why do we need poetry at all?
- To the layman - for entertainment. "Insightful reader" - as "food" for the mind and "inspirer" for the heart. Society, the state - for independent development and assertion of itself among other states.
- Poet?
- To express Truth.
- If everyone needs poetry, why is it so difficult for her to break through to "these all"?
- Probably because "these all" are passionate about something more fashionable, practical, easy to understand in our age, which is by no means burdened with romantic intellect. Because very powerful forces are working against poetry, which seek to push it to a distant, almost invisible plane, to obscure it. To nullify its impact on people's lives. Imagine a worthless trifle ...
- Is there a fight here?
- Yes, "we can only dream of peace." It was not by chance that I spoke about the power of the opposing forces. Why? Because poetry has incredible power. Fighting it takes a lot of effort. Because poetry, like prayer, is addressed to the soul and spirit, hence its helpless naivety against the background of the carnal world and, at the same time, “immortal invulnerability!”
How does this power of poetry work? What is manifested?
- In everything, in all areas. In the personal, private life of a person. IN public life, in the field of state building. Even in geopolitics. You, a Leningrader-Petersburger, know that through verses they saved themselves from hunger and cold during the blockade. The freedom-loving Pushkin and Decembrist verses excited the public consciousness and led to the performance of 1825. Thunderous Mayakovsky smashed opponents with verses Soviet power... Poets of the sixties gathered stadiums - crowds went to poetry at Luzhniki, as they go to rock concerts or football matches now. Do not possess such a poetic word great power Nothing like this would ever happen...
- Why don't poets collect stadiums now?
- Because after perestroika, it was not the "engineers of human souls" who won a temporary victory, but their antipodes, who evaluate any phenomenon with money. And who impose this criterion on everyone. Managers in power, in business, in culture, are fighting poetry in cunning ways, not noticing, not recognizing, declaring its uselessness. But poets still write poems, and people read them. And thank the authors for their persistence. I travel a lot around Russia with Poetry Day and I know what I'm talking about.
- Who is the poet?
– A poet is a being of a different, in some sense, super- or superhuman nature. It's from a different test. He, in Rubtsov's way: "hears sad sounds that no one hears." Our poetic geniuses refined their minds and purified their souls to such an extent that they were able to penetrate into the highest heavenly spheres. And there to find new images, words. Create new language. And even prophesy. A real poet is a piece, unpredictable phenomenon. The internal contradictions that inevitably accompany him all his life are probably predetermined by fate even before birth ...
My maternal grandmother, nee Rudneva, managed to study at the Institute for Noble Maidens, and my grandfather is a participant white movement, whose surname is mentioned in the works of Bulgakov. But my paternal grandfather, who gave me not only my last name, but also my first name, was cut in the First Cavalry, was an associate of Georgy Zhukov, at the same time falling into disgrace with him. By the way, he was buried at the Bogoslovsky cemetery in St. Petersburg. I myself am somewhat of a Petersburger. So there is where to "carve out" a poetic spark.
But this “spark” is not really needed now. It is well known that the WORD sounds only in a responsive environment, and the environment is now, you know what it is. Many managers of the current government and business do not hear poets. And before perestroika, by the way, the power of poets caressed, provided the necessary ...
- Atheistic power...
- Yes! This was the main problem Soviet poetry. Because great poets, under the direct guidance of God, receive direct revelations. But how can atheists talk about God?.. Guardianship of the Soviet government, of course, destroyed many talents, but at the same time Silver Age, because the educational qualification of the people was high, who managed to preserve the inner faith, including faith in poetry ...
- Strange... The current government is friends with the Church, but with poetry, it turns out, not very much. How do you think she should behave with poets?
- Take care, stand by their side. Take poetry for full state support. Sponsors from government and business should finance not football clubs and visiting legionnaires, but their own, native, home-grown poets. And the most talented - just carry on your hands. And even enter into all spheres of management.
But the problem is not only in the attitude of power to poetry... I have the highest demands on the poets themselves. There are many examples when a person does not develop his poetic gift. Do not dive into the unknown. Satisfied with some primitive texts. Or he goes to the other extreme, builds his career on poetry - rushes with his verses, demands recognition, respect, increased attention to his person, applause, bouquets. Looking for fame, money. Begins to rise above others. What is it? What kind of distortion of meanings is this?
Poetry is for the self-denying. It is possible to develop the gift only by giving up pleasures, suppressing temptations. Concentration on the word, and not on success in the liberal interpretation of this concept, is the hallmark of a true poet.
– Along with testimonies about the Truth, prophecies and with their own evolution, what else do you think poets should do?
- Develop the language. Can you imagine Russia without the Russian language created by Pushkin? No. I can not either. What would we now tongue-tied or high-flown, or in a simple way babble without Pushkin's genius? This means that every poetic descendant of Pushkin must take on the task of creating a language. Find new words, phrases, figures of speech. And also, it seems to me, it is very important to follow the advice of Professor Vladimir Zhuravlev, who wrote that "the conscious assimilation of the modern Russian language is impossible without Church Slavonic." With all its forty characters, I'll add. From the letter az, which looks like an outlandish gate with a string, to the funny letter Izhitsa flying like a jackdaw.
Only a poet can do this work. And, if he does not fulfill it, they will experiment with the language in the gateways, in the hangouts of youth subcultures, in places not so remote. In fact, the “work” there is already underway and we know its results.
"In the beginning was the word." It was, is and will be. Not money, as managers think, but words are at the beginning of any business. Orders in the army, orders in power are given in words. What quality, what accuracy these words will be - the result of actions will also be of such quality.
I once caught myself thinking: if the academician of the Imperial St. Petersburg Medical and Surgical Academy Danilo Vellansky had not introduced the word “culture” into Russian everyday life, then the Ministry of Culture - my last place of state service - simply would not exist.
- Did the administrative language that you spoke and wrote as an official harm your language as a poet?
- No. The staff style of working in the ministries, where I spent a good half of my working life - and I have an architectural and construction education - helped me to eradicate the laxity that distinguishes some writers. Taught competently, in Russian to express their thoughts.
By the way, many excellent Russian poets went in the ranks and sometimes even in the ranks of a general. For example, the Attorney General Russian Empire, Acting Privy Councilor Gavriil Derzhavin. Or Comrade Minister of Foreign Affairs, Privy Councilor Fyodor Tyutchev. Or State Councilor Alexander Griboyedov. Even Pushkin had the court rank of chamber junker.
"Harm" the poetic and in general literary language maybe - and already harmful - the fact that Russia after perestroika went along the western path. Not on my own...
All modern prose is a banal game of words, plots, situations. No character! There are no heroes! The inability to create character just depresses me. Why? Because there is no gift? Maybe ... Everything is there: PR, promotion, technology, big money, festivals, bookstores, simplification of the Russian language, bordering on humiliation, but there are no heroes!
In poetry, the situation is more encouraging. Here, heroes fight for heroes. Evidence of this is the incredible demand and popularity of the "Day of Poetry", which I happened to revive.
- Please tell us briefly how this revival began.
It's better to tell from the beginning. The almanac "The Day of Poetry" appeared in Moscow in 1956. Its release has become a special, significant event for lovers of the poetic word. After all, the almanac contained almost all the stars Russian poetry. Its circulation in some years reached one hundred thousand copies, and the chief editors of the almanac became different years Sergei Narovchatov, Vladimir Sokolov, Evgeny Vinokurov, Yuri Kuznetsov, Larisa Vasilyeva, Nikolai Starshinov and other wonderful poets. The last regular Poetry Day came out in 1991, after which there were several attempts to revive it, but the almanac was not constantly released.
In 2006 at the March round table leading poets of Russia, held as part of the " world day Poetry” UNESCO within the walls of the Ministry of Culture of Russia, where I was lucky to work then, there was a unanimous request for the revival of the almanac. It was implemented in the shortest possible time.
I cannot fail to note the role of the then Minister of Culture Alexander Sokolov in the revival of the Poetry Day. If there were more such understanding people in power, not only the almanac would be revived - Russia.
Since then, the almanac has been published annually. Its circulation is low, but the Internet came to the rescue. Look, the almanac has gone beyond the borders of Russia and is confidently marching around the world. This year we will celebrate the tenth anniversary of the revived “mirror of national poetry”, which serves not to disunite, but to unite all the healthy poetic forces of the country.
It is said: “There are several thousand of us in Russia, and we all have the same name - poets. And only a few of us have the right to a proper name. I constantly think about multiplying and preserving these names while working on the almanac...
Lament for Russian poets
A farewell voice will be sent to heaven
Bell of human repentance...
How many of us are gone? How many of us
Beyond calling and recognition?
How many of us are gone! How many of us
Took over the Russian Plain.
Waiting on the Black River scarlet crust,
Scaffold - in the womb of a ravelin! ..
How many kissed the blizzard on the forehead!
How many a serpent's thorn streamed after!
Put, Elabuga, on the coffin
Asphodel of the Caucasus for Marina.
And the soul is a zigzag from the wall,
With a mouse from the tree - it will break out on the grass ...
We'll be back from that war
Where are the verses - the burning edge of the state!
And let's go through the scattering of sheets
Lampoons, denunciations and slanders.
And the motherland will not have enough crosses -
Like posthumous awards for poets!
Return to yourself
October will come, and the cranberries will go through the forests.
Rather, she will run through the sour swamps.
And maybe I
if only I can, I myself
I will write about this time before the chilly departure.
How firs were built along a narrow path
on guard,
Where we made our way in the evening
to the village with mushrooms.
And the dog in the yard pulled an endless song,
So that mom would not be bored in her loneliness.
Empty decks lie like a tumbled coffin
And mom, anticipating a quick heart
Said, "Go,
on the roads now blackthrope ... "
And quietly attached to the glass
transparent hand...
Not everyone who has gone to a bright dream
doskal.
Not everyone returned home from afar dejectedly ...
In wolf time - a wolf, bestial grin.
And with a fox color tanned winter skin.
But in a flash of thunderstorms and in the flicker
swamp lights,
Along the wild water that carries the breakers to sunset,
I went to the end, leaving friends and horses,
Listening to the universal battle deaf roar!
And where the fateful one appeared as a seal
Having overcome him, between steeps and clouds,
I am the dead lips of an immortal land
kissed...
And I remembered the house ... And wept bitterly
Andrey Shatskov
Interviewed by Vladimir Khokhlev
Composition: “Is poetry necessary in the 21st century?” You can write using the presented option.
“Does modern man need poetry” essay
Poetry ... Such a seemingly simple word in modern world. But this is a whole engine that can kindle more than one icy heart. And why is poetry important in human life and is poetry generally needed in the modern world?
We have crossed the border of the new millennium — the time of powerful information resources and technological progress. Today, television and the Internet have entered almost all spheres of life. And people began to forget about aesthetic values and spiritual development. Books are no longer needed, writers are no longer needed. Unfortunately, one often hears: why these verses?
Poetry is an important part of my life for me. It's not just a word. This is what kindles a fire in my soul, makes me laugh, cry, enjoy the beautiful. Just think how many aesthetic lines have been given to us by unsurpassed poets. Pushkin, Nekrasov, Lermontov are real titans who, in word, as if in deed, knocked on every door, on every soul. It is their poetry that teaches me from childhood to love the Motherland, my family, to be a good friend and a strong personality. Every word they say sounds like a sweet song to me.
It hurts my heart when you realize that now poetry has lost its value. That now it is only the material of textbooks at school. They learn verses by heart, and in the morning they forget. And this is wrong. Because with them the history and culture of the people are forgotten. Loss of confidence in the future.
Recently, a poetic duel took place between an official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry and an opposition "poetic observer". I was pleasantly surprised by such relations between the authorities and the opposition. Therefore, he also wrote a poetic commentary on this controversy.
I do not consider myself a poet, although I wrote down 1145 verses. A poet is not one who writes poetry. A poet is one who thinks in verse! Who can catch and poetically express moods, thoughts and feelings in a rhymed way, and sometimes in free verse.
The poetic duel between the authorities and the opposition again made me think: what is the difference between a poet and a person who writes poetry, and why do we need poets?
With this question, I came to the “Poetry Championship”, which was held in the Mayakovsky library in St. former home Dutch envoy in the time of Pushkin. To my question "why do we need poets" I received very interesting answers.
“Poets are needed to decorate this world. Poets share the treasure of their souls. Words can kill, words can resurrect. Therefore, what we say is of great importance. Because the soul and high thought are invested in the word of poetry. The space that surrounds us is very lacking beautiful words, beautiful lofty thoughts. If a person radiates such thoughts, then he will work on the creation of our space, our Earth, humanity.”
Poets are a must! These are the people who can't help writing poetry. They are needed to make it happen. Its 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 being a mass product, something for a very narrow audience.”
“Poets are needed for themselves. Poetry is a very vivid way of communication. There is an idea that you cannot put your brain and your soul into another person. That's what poets do!"
“A poet today is a word, it is the ability to speak. Poetry is a locomotive. Poets are people who are looking for 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, absolutely incredible incomprehensible phenomena. They clearly formulate, structure, explain for us. We don't even always understand what those feelings are. It is always a locomotive, an icebreaker of everything incomprehensible, which is inexplicable for us. Where science with its method will never reach. Poetry is valuable.
If poetry dies, it means that we have stopped in our development, turned off all feelings and sit and devour 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, to express oneself. Self-expression is one of the basic human needs. And it is best realized in poetry. Poetry is the ability to say the simplest 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 some topical issues other people. They do not want to remain indifferent. They don't care!"
“Poets state what is happening in society now. They are an emotional slice of history that is now in this moment is happening."
…
What is difficult in our time,
If there is a head on the neck,
It is worth sowing through the prism of thought
Such a phenomenon as words.
…
Like a way out to tear yourself apart,
Live under the mask, climb into the noose,
Scold the regime, caress the authorities,
No, I don't like 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 in verse. 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, in order to better understand myself.”
“Poetry is for nothing. This is a phenomenon that has been present in culture since the beginning of the emergence of the language.
“Poetry is much more of a concept than it can be understood. It's not just putting words into rhyme or a poetic way of life. For me, poetry is one of the ways of expressing my ideas and thoughts.”
“How to sing. Let's not be loud.
I'm not used to big words.
I put my soul into a needle
And I darn the bed of the Neva ... "
There is a good movie called Dead Poets Society. He is about the fact that death for a poet can be nicer than living not in accordance with his destiny.
What attracts poetry? After all, not only pleasant rhymes and consonance of words. In my opinion, poetry is not so much rhyme as a concentrated and figuratively expressed THOUGHT!
Primary religious texts existed in the form of poetic hymns. The oldest literary works it is poetry (Homer's Iliad and Odyssey). Prose was not considered literature. Yes, by and large it does not count even now.
It is believed that after the abolition of ritual sacrifice, contact with the other world was lost. In the absence of the supernatural, the need arose for the production of the superartificial. This super-artificial, in my opinion, was 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 in one person. It was believed that poetry is both a gift and a curse, and the gods prophesy through the mouth of the poet.
In a state of inspired ecstasy and obsession, the poets possessed the property of otherness and divination, they felt themselves at the mercy of otherworldly forces. The poet became permeable to the narrow entrance to the ancestral source of knowledge, where the sphere of comprehensibility of the existent opened before him.
But in order to penetrate into the intelligibility of the world, a complete detachment from one's nature is necessary. Poets must live in a state of detachment and detachment from the world. To get in touch with the otherworldly, an altered state of consciousness is required. To do this, you need to turn to your part of the other world, which is in every person.
The transformation of a reasonable person (Homo Sapiens) into a spiritual person (Homo Spiritus) occurred as a result of some kind of anthropological catastrophe (perhaps the fall, expulsion from Paradise). As a result, a person acquired a soul and conscience, necessary for contact with the other world.
Recently I was at 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 the "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 gives the entrance to the intelligibility of the world. It is poetry, as a part of art, that synthesizes in man his existence.
The "Golden Fund of Poetry" is the golden reserve of the existence of mankind!
Poetry is both absolutely unreal and absolutely real, something that can be discussed with others.
Poetry is a communion with the ancestral source of knowledge, where the order of madness precedes the order of reason.
True Poetry is a spiritual sacrifice, a peculiar 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" Anatoly Chertenkov
…
I was suffocating, having got into 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, words were missing,
And the walls were erected somehow,
He broke everything, started all over again:
And again pain and foam on the lips!
He rushed up, broke down, fell into the abyss,
But I forgave everything, I understood:
And there is no hope, there is no being!
…
The thought of Being and the thought of God are the two major events in human history. So says the famous philosopher Alexander Nikolaevich Isakov. I recently attended a course of his lectures under the general title "Thought as an Event".
AN 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 Revelation!
Because it is completely incomprehensible where unexpected thoughts come from, how and why inspiration visits us.
Thought is like discovery. It is not always the result of logical inference and reasoning; not always the fruit of the activity of the rational.
Sometimes at first we experience incomprehensible languor or excitement, and only then INSIGHT illuminates us, and we suddenly understand what we thought hard about or never thought about.
Almost always Revelation comes as a response. If, of course, the question is correctly formulated. Moreover, the answer is always formulated in a complete perfect form.
Distinctive feature Revelation is that there is no doubt about it. This is a thought perfect in its completeness and conciseness, 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 talk to 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 is a speculative division. It is necessary to 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 yearns for pain,
I am happy - I comprehended the Meaning of Everything!
I became a particle of the meaning of the universe -
And my life now makes sense.
I can't stop exclaiming:
I am a part of God, I am God, I am His thought!
I recently participated in the philosophical discussion "Why a Philosopher in Lean Times", organized by European University in St. Petersburg and the Open Faculty of Philosophy. As " homework” was invited to read Martin Heidegger’s essay “What are poets for?”
Since few people read the work of M. Heidegger, it was practically not discussed. But I read Heidegger's work and formulated my answer, why do poets need it in "lean times".
In the essay Why Poets, Martin Heidegger wrote:
“Poets are those of the mortals who, solemnly singing Vinobog, smell the trail of the departed gods, follow their trail and thus pave the way for the rest of the mortals to conversion.”
“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 is, 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 dialect". Poetry does not talk about what happened, does not describe what is happening, with its word it creates being.
Heidegger says that poets, just like philosophers, are the guardians of the house of being, i.e. language.
The artist almost never speaks about himself in the first person in his works, the thought speaks through him.
How deep does poetry descend into the abyss? Where does the poet go, if, of course, he goes where he can go? - Heidegger asks rhetorically, analyzing Rilke's work.
Rilke, in his own way, in a poetic way, cognized and experienced the unconcealment of beings that had developed in this way.
"The higher the level of consciousness, the more excluded from the world is the conscious being." That is why man resists the world.
“Language is the house of being. Man lives in the dwelling of language. Thinkers and poets are the guardians of this dwelling. Their guard is the realization of the openness of being, so much they give it a word in their speech, thereby preserving it in the language.
“Speech and silence can be likened to being and being. Being is what is and is not. Silence is the same: both calls speech into existence 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 the primacy of poetic creativity over philosophical. The philosopher only reflects on what is created by the inspiration of the poet, finds and deciphers the meanings in the intuitive poetic image.
It is unlikely that any philosopher will be able to portray Hell so convincingly as Dante did in " 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 is concerned with the reflection of the original revelation. The mind comprehends what the soul knows.
April 8, 2016 I participated in the All-Russian scientific and practical conference"HOMO LOQUENS: LANGUAGE AND CULTURE". It was held 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 in English in the age of globalization?
In my opinion, poets are the spirit of the nation! Therefore, first of all, poets can preserve the Russian language (this is our "house of being" in the words of Heidegger). Without language there can be no culture, without culture there is no nation, and without nation there is no country. To save the Russian language means to save 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 not experiencing the end of philosophy, but another crisis as a transition from the old worldview to the new one.
We don't know what time we live in. But we clearly feel the coming twilight.
But is it the twilight of dawn or the twilight of sunset?
Poets can more adequately describe twilight than philosophers. Only poets can convict time in its ontological illusory nature - a unique repetition in the change of 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 the pure philosophical contemplation of ideas to be the highest form of knowledge, a way of ascending to higher ideas.
It can be assumed that the Platonic World of Ideas is an information field (by analogy with the Internet), which also includes the Earth - a kind of "universal Internet". The ancient Hindus called it the Akashic Record, and the Christians called it the Holy Spirit. It stores all the information about the past, present and, possibly, the future, not only of our civilization, but also of all previous ones.
A few years ago at the Faculty of Philology and Arts of St. Petersburg state university I took part in the discussion 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 that there is no exact definition. However, everyone has their own opinion.
The poet is not rational, he is intuitive. The poet is strong not with his consciousness, but with 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. The knowledge of being 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. There she was, the Poet!
And recently I met with the poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko. It is to him that the famous words “A poet in Russia is more than a poet” belong. Evgeny Aleksandrovich even answered a few 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.
The poet should in his work not so much embody already known ideas as comprehend new meanings.
The whole question lies in the scale of ideas and meanings comprehended by the poet. If they are deep and viable, then they do not need state support, they will sprout themselves.
Only poetry has access to certain ideas and meanings that are inaccessible to philosophy and science. And this is the great responsibility of poetry.
Poetry is not an end in itself. Although she is self-sufficient.
Poetry is not entertainment. Anniversary poems and rhyming is not poetry. Poetry is a way of knowing, a form of comprehending Revelation!
Real poems are thought forms.
Words are forms of images, and therefore they are not looked for, but come along with images, being only a means of expression.
If I manage to formulate a question in the first lines, then I only write down the answer, which rhymes by itself.
True creativity is a presentation, because it is not from oneself.
Real poetry is not composed, but written down.
When I want to compose something myself, nothing happens, but when I try to tune in and feel, the stanzas are born by themselves. And sometimes in such a finished form that I'm just amazed. Why and why this happens, I do not understand. For me, this is the same revelation as for others.
Undoubtedly, creativity is divinely inspired. 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 earn money on it. Inspiration is a reward for faith and the Lord's help to those who need it.
Genuine art is disinterested, because it is from God!
Feelings, mood of the artist are not empty, this is a game of inspiration, labyrinths of the creative process. Inspiration is irrational. Without inspiration, there is no creativity. But it takes faith!
Poetry is a presentation, not a composition. Words are not selected. Every word, if it is the same, it is inevitable, it and only it, and no other.
Do you know how feeling dictates a line? I feel it as a kind of excitement, like music, which I try to express with the help of words.
Words are untranslatable, because this is 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 creative process is important, not the product. It's not about literary delights, but about comprehending the innermost. Worst of all, if they say: he used to write with inspiration, but now it is beautiful, 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 to myself. And where did the inspiration come from? Why?
Inspiration is such a blessing! 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 a dream and in reality, so that I am interesting to myself and firmly know that I will not lie. But man is so arranged that life dictates being. But I don't want to be calm. I want everything or nothing! No, I am not a function of conditions, and I am not a slave of circumstances. I want myself to be worthy, to be honest, if I'm not right. Life requires you to look for conveniences, paying for life by untruth. But not the comfort of my guidance, but the Voice that sounds in me. He demands to be extremely honest in every word and in trouble, and not to look for a warm place, but to be only sincere everywhere. I don't care about fears and losses, threats to live in poverty for me. I do not want the convenience of the goal, it is 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 sincerity shore. Everything else doesn't count!
The artist creates the world, he is a demiurge, he is a god,
He hears the call of Heaven, he catches the Muses syllable.
And the Lord requires that there be only one poet,
Both at home and in the family, although he is not unsociable.
And therefore the poet runs from superfluous words,
From the vulgar fuss, family squabbles, worries,
From thoughts about food, about sex, noise - away!
He must be alone, his girlfriend is the night.
He is a subtle instrument of divine principles,
And the Verb demands that the poet be silent.
The artist is the Muses' slave, his Spirit is jealous,
Who serves - gives everything, and the rest - nothing.
The poet will not create what God does not give him,
And he must remember his last hour.
Do not invent what 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 from himself.
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 -
Get over yourself and make your dreams come true.
The artist sees what many are not given,
He sees the future through a cloudy glass,
Trying to unravel God's Meaning in creation,
And tell the world what is to come.
The artist is a prophet, the poet is doubly a prophet,
He proclaims what Fate wants.
He sacrifices himself for the Lord to do,
The poet lives so that God creates the world for them.
He does not dare to ask, because he has a gift,
He creates with his soul, and the body of needs is not a slave.
He asks for silence in order to hear God's voice,
And he creates dreams that are so necessary for us.
Comfort is not needed either - it will destroy talent! -
All you need is silence, and only bread, and sleep.
Convenience is not the goal, but so that he can create,
Money is not important here, because the Muses cannot be bought,
Do not beg for poetry, do not beg for love,
After all, inspiration is a Gift, the hard work of the soul.
The poet is not appreciated while he lives among us,
But will become famous as soon as he dies.
He serves as a reproach for those who sleep with 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 thank them.
A poet is always a fighter, an artist and a hero.
And God speaks to them. He is only his God!
(from my true-life novel "The Wanderer" (mystery) on the site New Russian Literature
Some Moscow celebrities come to St. Petersburg to teach versification to our poets for money. But St. Petersburg poets do not need Moscow "teachers" who come to the cultural capital "on a whim"...
On April 8, 2016, in the former premises of the Smolninsky bakery, and now the loft of the ETAGI project, the Big City Poetry Festival was held.
If there are poets, then there is hope!
And there is no hope, there is no being!
WHY DO YOU NEED POETS?
© Nikolai Kofirin – New Russian Literature –
Poetry. Even the word is somehow too refined to seem masculine. When someone mentions poetry, the imagination immediately draws languid freshmen with pimples on their foreheads, desperately composing another masterpiece. Or spiritually rich girls with volumes of Mandelstam who love to drink their stupid latte and talk about “high” - and usually in such primitive categories that it turns out and the thought comes to mind that it would be better to cook borscht in the kitchen. Poetry for teenagers, youths and women is a kind of antithesis of masculinity.
It wasn't always like that. Poetry is usually written and read by men - this has been the case for centuries, from ancient Greece: on all these Homer, Archilochus, Hesiod, Pindar and others there was only one Sappho - and that lesbian. Poetry was both art and entertainment.
In the past, poetry was one of the indispensable components of the education of any man. Today we only learn poetry in schools, because… but who knows why. We are used to the idea that poetry is not for men, because it is lyrical, emotional, and boys are taught to control emotions from an early age. Therefore, it is difficult for poetry to find its way into the men's library. In addition, we have other, more acceptable ways to express emotions.
Our society has changed, probably in the last century, and television seems to have taken the place that once belonged to poetry. Our society no longer needs poets to fill life with lyrics and entertain us. We have television and movies, and when we want to read, novels, short stories, magazines, newspapers, and entertainment websites are at our disposal. Poetry no longer has a place in our world, and therefore we forget about it. Maybe the people of the past knew something that we do not know? Maybe they read poetry not only because they did not have a TV? Maybe poetry is not only aahs, sighs, flowers and rainbows? There are poems about war, about friendship, about nature, philosophical lyrics - all this is much richer than the usual ideas about poetry.
Why should I read this?
It so happened that the present is built on the basis of the past. Our traditions Everyday life are conducted from the past, even if we are not aware of it. Reading poetry, especially old poetry, can give us the key to a better understanding of the world. Modern culture is not called postmodernist for nothing, one of its characteristic features- ubiquitous citation, ubiquitous references to past cultural facts, which we simply cannot understand if we do not have certain cultural baggage. I'll bet you haven't cut a lot of references even in popular movies because you haven't read enough poetry.
Reading poetry allows you to see the connection between the present and the past and get acquainted with the traditions that our ancestors had. For example, reading Pushkin can tell a lot about the life of the nobility in the 19th century.
Poetry is a fascinating story; sometimes a breathtaking plot unfolds in one poem of a hundred lines.
Sometimes poets create their own words that capture the essence of things very accurately, and this is also quite interesting. They can express great and even universal, seemingly inexpressible, in a couple of lines.
But reading poetry is necessary not only for entertainment or understanding of allusions. Joseph Brodsky said that poetry is highest form speech, and by reading poets, a person begins to better understand the language. He even put the question of the mass publication of poets on a par with the question of universal medical care.
Reading poetry is hard and tiring. The language and structure are different from our usual speech, it is difficult to perceive rhythm and rhyme. If the poem is long, it is sometimes difficult to understand it, it is difficult to interpret the images and it constantly worries whether you have understood the author's thought correctly. But if you take your time and give yourself time to reflect on the poem you read, you will begin to grow quickly and noticeably. Reading poetry requires a pumped up brain.
Where to begin
In no case should you turn reading poetry into a boring duty and routine. You can read one poem a day or a week. Make reading poetry a little ritual. For example, this can be done on a Sunday morning: read a poem over your first cup of coffee before you start doing other things. Read for fun or just to prove to yourself that you can. If you liked the process, then it’s good, but if not, it’s not scary: try reading another author. Even if everyone calls this poem one of the best, and you don't like it, just move on. There is no need to torture yourself and instill in yourself that “you don’t understand anything in poetry, because you don’t like this poem, although it is considered objectively good.” Poetry is art. It can be judged subjectively, but still operate with more sane arguments than "boring".
Poets worth reading
To begin with, let's turn to the classics, although I would not advise reading it at the very beginning. Why? When I list the names, you will understand. The Epic of Gilgamesh, the Odyssey, the Iliad, the Aeneid, Paradise Lost - it's a shame not to read. But it makes no sense to start with such complex works: you will not get involved, you will not understand and quit. Start with something simpler, and then come back here.
Required reading: Homer, Shakespeare, Poe, Pushkin, Lermontov, Nekrasov, Blok, Mandelstam, Yesenin, Mayakovsky, Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva, Brodsky, Apollinaire, Baudelaire, Rimbaud.
Now for the optional: Kipling, Blake, Pope, Frost, Auden, Cavafy, Kogan, Simonov, Prigov, Huberman, Tennyson.
