This is a question that you often hear in such a crude form, and not only from people who simply do not understand the meaning of poetry, but also from poets themselves, who not infrequently give in to skepticism and push their own insignificance to the heart of their work.
It is a fact that poetry is becoming less and less popular all over the world today. There are many reasons for this phenomenon, and of course the least here is the material or materialistic reason: that what you can not physically consume is no longer interesting. Poetry can not be separated, you can not be clothed, you can not warm up, you can not cool down, in a word, you can not create comfort, on the contrary: poetry is constantly trying to pull you out of comfort zones and return to the world to realize its tragic destination.
This, you will agree, is a difficult and not pleasant process.
This reason is not ridiculous for today's Obi-Wanat, for whom poetry, big or big, can be the decoration of a table toast, the crackling of pathetic or unpatriotic words, which, in fact, speaks to us of spiritual emptiness.
On the other hand, it was these consumerist attitudes that exacerbated human selfish aspirations and thus locked each of us in such loneliness that any voice message was powerless to convey this tragedy, and poetry was faced with the need to find new forms and means, a completely different expressive language.
Consequently, the understanding of the poet's purpose in society has changed radically.
The relevant verses of Rustaveli will probably help us to understand the purpose of poetry in medieval Georgia the most, if we read these verses correctly and with the understandings characteristic of that epoch.
After all, the prologue of The Panther's Skin tells us quite clearly that poetry (or poetry) is, for the first time, a field of wisdom, divine, divinely intelligible, a great marg for the listeners. "Again, Akatsa Eames, whoever is a good man, a long word is said to be short, Shair is so good."
The key word in this passage is wisdom, which, of course, here refers primarily to divine, transcendental wisdom, wisdom that helps us to understand the nature of God. Knowing the nature of God is the way of worldly life, the fruit of which man must attain in the world. That is why Rustaveli adds, "Again, there are those who listen to a good man." That is, the fruit of poetry is universal, but even here, in this worldly life, it will bring benefits to the good person who understands it right here in the world.
Even in the Middle Ages, if in nineteenth-century Georgia (and partly in the world) the function of a poet was equal to that of the Apostle Lama ("I speak to God to lead the previous nation" (Ilia Chavchavadze), such a claim today Perceived.
Yet poets do have the tragic ability to predict the future, as their finest emotional sensors can sense or anticipate impending civil or global catastrophes.
It is not uncommon for one poem to reflect the appalling reality of an entire era. Examples of such poems are two examples from world poetry: the "Invasion of the Barbarians" by the great Greek poet Constantine Cavafy and the "Fugue of Death" by the great German poet Paul Celan.
These two poems conveyed with extraordinary clarity the whole twentieth century, the tragic vicissitudes of that century.
Twentieth century Georgian poetry faced a completely different reality and, as they say now, completely different challenges. Small countries, which constantly have to take care of their own identity and, moreover, fight for physical survival, have everything calculated for this purpose.
It is therefore understandable that one of the dominant streams of our poetry in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was patriotic lyricism, the foundation of which is pathetics: "Oh, my blood, where did you not spill, where did you not see the black raven, who will surprise me, what will surprise me, Nadidgorali, Nashamkorali." (Mukhran Machavariani).
I have to tell you that to this day both of these patterns work like magic on me, and it is through this influence that I admit that both poems presented here are examples of great poetry, but if you look at it from around the world, it may seem ridiculous to me. Suicide.
Once, I joked with one of my acquaintances Machabel, yes, but if there was a heated war and the country was turning up, these Machabelis, tell me one thing, what were you singing — I said. He understood the humor exactly and also answered me: "Looking at so many brave people, tell me the reason for the song, oh, tell me!"
In fact, this very everyday dialogue was an understanding of another era of this masterpiece by Lado Asatiani. Of an era that replaced irony with a serious perception of tragic reality. And it is always a symptom that you begin to understand your past and present, your head and the world around you on a completely different level.
You begin to break down the fateful taboos that were once realized by religion itself or by public opinion elevated to the degree of religiosity through the same poetry.
While one of the calls of poetry is to break the prevailing clichés, public and pseudo-religious taboos for the benefit of the freedom of the individual or individual.
Poetry describes reality not because it provides us with a cookbook of life, but because it makes it easier for us to make choices in favor of our own freedom. But then, a real problem arises in us, when we no longer know what to look for in this freedom.
That is why he chooses to speak poetry in a measured, ambiguous, parable about great truths. Comparison is the shield of poetry and metaphor is its sword. One will defend himself and the other will cut himself. One will arm and the other will disarm. And this process, which "plays and sounds like a song", is actually an extremely internal, dramatic and dangerous game.
These few reasons, which I have touched upon above, would be quite sufficient for me personally to regard poetry as the bread of such existence as ordinary physical food and drink. I was constantly searching for it everywhere and I was eager to hear where the true voice of poetry is heard today, which corresponds to this era, to the present level of my spiritual and intellectual development.
In his time, the great Georgian writer of the twentieth century Otar Chkheidze published an arc of very important letters under the common title "Little Books". In these highly expressive and at the same time very deep letters, Otar Chkheidze responded mainly to the first collections of poetry of young poets: he encouraged these authors and, most importantly, shared his very important observations about this or that problem in the face of environmental reality, literature or society.
I now remember these letters of Otar Chkheidze because I have set a similar goal in this modest review of mine and I want to introduce you to three important contemporary poets, whose (mostly, exactly) first collections have recently made a special impression on me.
The collection of poems of the poet Gio Lomidze "Parody of Peace" ("Nodar Dumbadze Publishing House and Literary Agency", editor Gaga Lomidze, 2018) seems very conceptual to me. This conceptualism can be seen from the cover of the book (sleeve design Morel), which is a kind of gateway to Gio Lomidze's most difficult metaphor. On the cover, along with the author's last name and title, we see a loaf of bread with a chicken egg, which looks so much like a stone that you have to look closely to identify the bread in it.
This heaviness, broken in fragility, which is, in fact, lightness, at the same time, symbolizes the interplay of the masculine and feminine origins (yin and yang), egg and bread.
This photo can be thought of as an interaction between the inner (fragile) human world or the psyche and reality.
This is what Gio Lomidze tells about in his first book, but he tells it completely unpathetically, with a sense of humor, even monotonously, like a preacher at the icon.
This association is not accidental either, as it is often very difficult to identify the poet's true utterance in the poetic narrative of this highly complex structure. Gio Lomidze tells us with these poems that reality has a thousand faces, it is given to us in all these ways and it depends on us from them, which one we will choose if we give preference. That is why it is possible to read and understand everything in the world upside down. Any of your actions are boomerangs and come back to you like a boomerang. The power of this reversal or reversal is very emotionally seen in one of the poems "* * * People are shot by boomerangs".
The poem goes like this: “Drunkards interfere with each other's feet, all the latitudes want the equator, the land rests on its feet, we all understand, we love, all fight us, forget us; We see a dream; Advises direction; We have a goal… ".
This whole brilliant text is built on the game of such a reversal of reality, which, along with significant poetic inversion, also includes forms of grammatical inversion that are completely foreign to the ordinary rivers of the Georgian language, but which actually opens the completely natural but hitherto undiscovered possibilities of language.
This fact reminds us once again of one of the main purposes of poetry, which people had very well understood probably from the beginning of the universe. Namely, that language is ultimately created and shaped by poetry.
In any case, this particular poem by Gio Lomidze can be the subject of considerable discussion not only of the literary critic, but also of the linguist.
The pirouette of life, the genius of reading from the opposite side, is strongly expressed in several other poems by Gio Lomidze, two of which are preceded by the part "no". These poems are: "non-gravitational" and "non-creative".
In both of these poems, the paradoxical reality of today's Georgia is captured, which is such a mess as the reality itself, to which the poet says "no" from the title.
"Non-gravitational" can also be the name of the lyrical hero of this verse, because here the wrestling of man and earthly reality is conveyed. Of a man who tries to break the laws of gravity (if he does not already obey these laws on the ground) and of a reality who tries to chain this man who aspires to heaven to earth. This poem is interesting because, in my opinion, it contains the most clearly expressed main conflict, which is the cornerstone of the whole poetry of Gio Lomidze.
In the second verse, I think, it is not so indirectly referred to the main artistic feature of Gio's poetry. As we know, Anacreon was the greatest Greek lyricist of the sixth century AD, sometimes referred to as the father of ancient Greek lyricism. I heard the title of Gio Lomidze's poem "Uncreative" in such a way that it contradicts the light singing mood in poetry, according to his position: Today's poetry is no longer sung, because reality no longer gives you the luxury and lightness of this lightness.
Not a song, sometimes Gio Lomidze's phrase is so difficult and twisted that it spins in itself like a whirlwind, rather than being thrown to the shore of some thought unknown to you. Here again I have to go back to the cover of the book and for comparison say that in this whole collection the thought is so tormented by the phrase with which it is expressed, as bread (if stone), for a chicken egg to be eaten.
This Tortman also creates a certain poetic mood, which is especially evident in the author's minimalism, which the author himself called "such".
One such mini seems to be so important to Gio himself that he put his own handwriting on the cover of the book:
"The rest of it has an artificial color all around when you realize that only the color of the blood is left positive."
It is impossible not to agree with Gio Lomidze's solver, the famous literary critic Gaga Lomidze, who says in the introduction to this collection:
Gio Lomidze's poetry collection adds a new touch to modern Georgian poetry. In his poetry, which is sometimes associated with the Georgian poetic heritage of the 190s or 1990s, an individual voice is undoubtedly felt, which is a necessary precondition for all valuable poetic texts. ”
But for me personally, Gio Lomidze's book showed only very distant associations with the poetic heritage of the previous century. This association also appears more with the works of the poets of that time, who were representatives of the mainstream line of that time. And in the case of Gio Lomidze, here too we can only talk about the association and not the direct influence.
Georgian poetry of the twentieth century is more "instructed" by the second poet, whose collection was also an important novelty for me, despite the many allusions, moods or themes that we see in these poems with the dominant Georgian poetic tradition of the twentieth century.
And in principle, this can be considered as less than Eka Kvitsiani's first poetry collection "Someone Else's House" (published by "Intellect", editor Nino Sadghobelashvili, 2018).
To put it more clearly, if the ignorance of the poetic tradition in Gio Lomidze's collection can also come from a proper ignorance of this tradition, a thorough knowledge of the tradition with Eka Kvitsiani is mingled with the old poetic methods, already tried-and-tested measures, moods and aesthetics in general.
It is unfortunate because in Eka Kvitsiani's collection it is also clear that this poet has great potential, which, in my opinion, so far is completely "incorrectly" used only to cover the appearance of the poem.
One gets the impression that all this artistic aesthetics is borrowed and the collection is not accidentally called "someone else's house" because it is really someone else's estate, a living space where the poet locks the power of tradition and does not realize that in all this gray, only his breath. His life is new and unique.
This can be said of the form, which is probably largely determined by the content. In terms of content, Eka Kvitsiani's poetry is one of the great love elegies and almost all the poems draw the contours of this one elegy.
The most risky poetic step today is to write love and patriotic poems. Because so much has been said in this direction and such masterpieces have been written even in Georgian poetry that it is difficult to add something valuable to this height. Although every person thinks that his love experience is unique and for him only his love is unique. But, as we have said, writing about love in poetry today, expressing this love is a slippery slope, and every tasteful poet moves very carefully, in every way measured steps, in this "dangerous" space.
Eka Kvitsiani is not afraid and walks on the ice as if she is skiing. At the same time, her poems, if you can say so rudely, represent a purely feminine narrative of this love: a reality drama that has already ended, which could not and could not end in a woman's existence.
He constantly tells us how he abandoned or "missed" his partner, how they did not see his virtues, how lonely, but, at the same time, how strong he is not only to endure, but to rise even to this loneliness. Tells us very emotionally, in direct and unkind words. And her lyrical protagonist is somewhat similar to the protagonist of Alla Pugacheva's famous song in the play "Madame Broshkina", but the lyrical protagonist of Eka Kvitsiani's collection really lacks the ironic-parodic pathos of Pugacheva's song.
In spite of all the above, which portrays Eka Kvitsiani as an Amirani chained to the Lama tradition in the Caucasus, this collection foretells the birth of an important poet, and the creator of this great lyrical sculpture really has the power to break these shackles and let go in the most creative sense. Build and close with rose petals new, own.
The gravitational force of traditional poetics has almost escaped the author of the third collection we want to talk about in this letter.
For Ia Jincharadze, unlike previous authors, the book: "Can I go home, sir?" Is not a debut collection. And it is felt from every phrase in the book, from every verse that the author bears as if he were playing a difficult chess game with himself.
In some of the poems, the author obviously loses this game, but mostly, in my opinion, he wins because he is a smart player, highly emotional, but he perfectly subdues this emotion with intellect, reading, understanding of life experiences.
If a phrase as straightforward as an ax with Eka Kvitsiani, a torrent of uncontrollable passions sweeps over you, in Ia Jincharadze's book all passions are suffocated by parables, metaphors, metonymy and other artistic means.
With this book, Ia Jincharadze is presented as a master of such indirect speech, which reveals the main messages of the author better than the direct speech.
These messages are often just certain signals, just hints of impending human catastrophe, but it is from these hints that the true, devastating, and devastating, scale of the catastrophe emerges.
Ia Jincharadze's poems are an unusual collection of several poetic traditions: native Georgian, Arabic poetry and Italian poetry. Georgian is understandable, he is an Arabic specialist, and in Italy, he has been living with his Arab wife and three children for years and is quite familiar with the culture and art of this country.
But Ia brings nothing directly and uncontrollably out of nowhere into his poetry. First, he knows exactly what he needs, and second, he knows how this or that novelty will relate to the organic river of Georgian poetic tradition.
The book is clearly in the hands of an experienced editor, the excellent poet Temur Chkhetiani (as well as the collection of Gio Lomidze, whose editor is Gaga Lomidze). This is where the editor's work is done, because the poems are not even spontaneously "embedded" in the collection, but are selected and arranged in the finest, perhaps only for a very focused poetic hearing with a tangible order and "purity".
Special mention should be made of the editor of Eka Kvitsiani's collection, writer Nino Sadghobelashvili, whose few phrases on the cover clearly explain the meaning and place of the author of the book.
In general, in my opinion, we should especially thank the publishers, because large and successful publishing houses in Georgia still avoid publishing poetry collections, they explain this decision by non-commercial poetry and they are right, because poetry is no longer mass art not only in Georgia but all over the world. In fact, it is only the units that understand and need it, but I have no doubt that the perspective of the country's development and survival hangs on these units.
This is what some publishers who stubbornly print new collections of poetry should realize, even though they know in advance: commercially this step is doomed to lose, but from a longer-term perspective there may be little profit more than what popularizing poetry, listening to poets will bring.
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