I am a non-professional critic. I participate in the books review and individual writing works as a reader. I do not pretend to be objective, my travels through the worlds of authors are sometimes superficial, sometimes too deep. Here and in other reviews, I express my attitude towards a specific writer at a specific moment.
This is my way of studying modern (and not so) literature, my way of worldview expanding. Because in the last 20 years I have read frankly little. Now I am not only interested (because I have changed my attitude towards literature, including Ukrainian), but I have to do it in order to improve myself as a writer. In my opinion, this is a natural process that is essential for quality growth to occur.
I love watching movies and have written a lot of reviews so far. Many of them remained “in the table”, some of them I publish little by little on the website. I got to book reviews only now, because I’m starting to incorporate regular reading into my day, which was practically non-existent before. I was doing anything but reading paper books.
The first book I came across was the collection “Metamorphoses. 10 Ukrainian poets of recent years”, compiled by the famous Ukrainian literary figure Serhiy Zhadan.
If divide 10 points between prose and poetry according to preference, it will be 8/2 in favor of the first. I was fascinated by poems as a young man and during my student years, but over time, prose finally won.
This collection ended up in my library in an unknown way. I just found it among others when I was sorting through Ukrainian books and russian junk. Just picked it up and just started reading.
I just read it and decided to start my literary reviews on this site with it.
I will write about each author separately, at the end – a conclusion about the book in general.
Andriy Bondar
Absolute lack of rhythm, a set of random words and meanings. The author seems to shine with the ability to blurt out words bought an hour ago and pours them in all directions, not understanding what he is talking about and what he really wanted to talk about.
I felt neither taste nor intelligence. The poems are full of mockery of the language and frantic superiority over the reader. The attempt to appear profound and sophisticated in this exceptionally personal and independent artistic prostration has suffered a crushing defeat. I believe that this garbage was published in this collection specifically so that other authors could contrast favorably against the background of this emptiness.
My rating is 0/10
Serhiy Zhadan
A well-known novelist I have not yet read. But I heard a lot about him and these reviews were favorable. I heard several of his songs, podcasts, and interviews. This is the only one from this list whom I know a little before reading the works in the collection “Metamorphoses. 10 Ukrainian poets of recent years”.
I can’t say I’m thrilled. Compared to the previous author, he looks very strong, but one feels that this is not his environment. The topics are superficial, the rhythm is choppy, but he knows how to tell stories well. It is interesting to read, but a little boring. My imagination rests and perceives this creativity not seriously, as a pastime before going to sleep. Perhaps it should be so.
Serhiy Zhadan is down-to-earth and understandable.
My rating is 7 out of 10.
Marianna Kiyanovska
Suffering ethereal poetry. He plays a lot with words and meanings, like a real poet who cannot get drunk with breadth of her imagination and throws her own thoughts into the words come under her pen. Intimate, own poetry, which does not really impress me. I did not find myself in it. I had no something enough. Perhaps some dialogue with the reader or greater movement freedom.
My rating is 6 out of 10.
Oleg Kotsarev
Finally, in this collection, I got hold of a real poet. Hundreds of meaningless and empty lines are in the past for me, and from now on I enjoy bold metaphors and allegories skillfully combine into the general meaning of a separate work.
And while no one saw
I took something out from under the shirt
But replaced it
Her b/w photo
Portrait
Actress Nedashkivska,
So theatergoers,
going down
They will think:
“Oh, what wonderful actresses there were then!”
And I after the concert
left the theater
And hugged me and started kissing me
Evening,
Cold starry evening,
Old homosexual. (Oleg Kotsarev)
/This text above was translated from Ukrainian by my own hand. The text was published for familiarization with the work and is not a complete literary translation./
Oleg Kotsarev does not play with words and does not hide his feelings in a corner. He allows you to look inside yourself and does it with a wide smile, even if sometimes wet with tears of his own suffering.
Piercing simplicity and boldness, individual exquisite tempo, perfect compositions and accents. I am delighted.
My rating is 10 out of 10
Halyna Kruk
Experience is felt in confident and at the same time elegant lines. All presented poems are combined with each other by a common feature – completeness, theme disclosure, bold accents. Close to me style, impressive.
From time to time I am worse than time – I spoil even that
that he cannot:
I break down words into parts, I completely deprive them of words,
breaking ties with loved ones,
prove the first is better
complex or complex sentence
to self-denial
I mix the sinful with the righteous, I complicate the simple,
I crush someone’s rose-colored glasses with my hindsight,
I clip the wings of dreams
stepping on the throat of my own song (if possible)
in a word: I break the heart of myself and one moron,
who firmly believes that this is for luck.
(Halyna Kruk)
/This text above was translated from Ukrainian by my own hand. The text was published for familiarization with the work and is not a complete literary translation./
Halyna Kruk is the second discovery for me personally in this collection. I read with great pleasure and took notes the hottest lines for myself.
My rating is 10 out of 10
Dmytro Lazutkin
Academic rhyme finally entered the eyes. I was waiting for it so much that I no longer believed in dating. The classical poem in its best angles steps with Dmytro’s mood.
they speak deliciously and harshly,
as if life is a cut of meat.
Everyone will take their own –
a gloomy cloud, a brown ghost:
here’s celery, here’s solara,
here you have solaris
(Dmytro Lazutkin)
/This text above was translated from Ukrainian by my own hand. The text was published for familiarization with the work and is not a complete literary translation./
I was greeted by a variety of styles. Here are laconic reflections and spacious observations, rhyming suffering, scratched mockery. Dmitry is handsome, brave, mature, strong. I like it.
My rating is 10 out of 10
Bohdana Matiyash
A romantic, happy sufferer, who stands out against the general background with a complete punctuation marks rejection. At first, it amuses a little, but by the tenth verse you get tired of looking for yourself among these intimate whispers in your ear in a continuous stream of words. The poet gives us, as it were, the freedom to place accents on our own, and it seems to me a failed attempt to stand out among others.
In addition, the absence of author’s accents, which are achieved by commas and dots, does not allow you to feel close to the author. Words set (literally) of a romantic woman in love. Weakly.
My rating is 4 out of 10
Svitlana Povalyaeva
Monotonous, depressive-aggressive lines quickly brought me back to reality, which inexorably screams about the frenzy of desperate attempts to find meaning in every day and not go completely insane. I read 18 poems, and it seems that one is very long. Too gloomy symbolism and mood. It doesn’t suit me, although I liked the style and rhythm.
My rating is 6 out of 10
Maryana Savka
16 parts on different topics and one separate poem. I didn’t understand almost anything. Perhaps I am not so developed in reading poems, I have not grown to this level. But for me, it is something outside. The last verse does not strike the imagination, does not respond, like everything else. I can’t say that I didn’t like it. Need to read it again? What if I don’t want to? We just speak different languages.
My rating is 3 out of 10
Ostap Slyvinsky
Probably the most difficult of the proposed poets in book “Metamorphoses. 10 Ukrainian poets of recent years”. Such works should be read together with the author, so that he invites an explanatory team to each line, telling for at least 25 minutes what he meant here, and then another 47 minutes, what he meant in combination with this and the next line in the pile. And so we would sit for a hundred years, until Zhadan came to us with the words, “what the fuck are you doing?”
This poetry is beyond my understanding, although intuitively I see the presence of intelligence. I see that the words seem to form a rhythmic portrait, but I do not hear the music. Perhaps the frequency of the melody is too high for my nonmusical ears.
My rating is 2 out of 10
Conclusions
I distinguish poems into several types.
“By Heart” are those you want to live you with. These are the ones hit the brain in several lines or completely, and you can no longer throw it out, because it got stuck, because the hook was deeply embedded, often forever. Can’t jump off.
“Soso” is as if the poet tried, as if he rhymes well, the story seems interesting, but something is missing, and you are looking for what to replace this gray frail duckling.
“Junk” is something that has meaning and value exclusively for the author, and exclusively because he created at least something. Quick sketches, devoid of even a hint of content and composition. You don’t want to keep them inside even for a second. Vomiting reflexes are caused by their incessant rat reproduction on IamanartistthatishowIseeit Square.
Of course, poetry, like all art heritage, is a limitless space for finding yourself between the lines. The subjective side is often decisive in assessments and perceptions. That’s why I’m not a very poetic man. I can read something, I can write a line or two myself. But all the same, prose works are closer to me in texture.
Among the poems in the collection “Metamorphoses. 10 Ukrainian poets of recent years”, I found a few that I want to remember so that I can recite them to someone at the opportunity, do not stop myself from desire to give, share bright, carry in my pocket. I am glad our (Ukrainian) poetry is alive, breathes and sparkles with talented people.
But
Most of the works remained uninteresting, insipid and too personal for me.
Also, there are not enough social topics here, ancient Ukrainian problems hover from afar, but do not enter fully. Everyone writes about something personal, and Ukraine is practically invisible in this personal. So it breathes the language and beauty of the poet’s soul, but I did not have enough of this love for my native land, people, cities. 2010 (and the years before that) is a relatively calm, stable (compared to current times) period.
This carefreeness, romance, obscene intimate audacity is felt
I was downright bored most of the time.
I recommend this book exclusively who understand poetry and are ready to grieve in all possible positions
For superficial entertainment reading – too serious, brutal and depressing.
Oleg Kotsarev, Halyna Kruk, Dmytro Lazutkin: I bow to you, and thank you for your quality works. Thanks to others, too, that Ukrainians and that you are.
If I take the average score from individual authors ratings, then:
My rating of the book “Metamorphoses. 10 Ukrainian poets of recent years” is 6 out of 10
