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Miroslav Nemirov. All about Poetry 12

All about Poetry 12
Miroslav Nemirov

Publication date: December 26, 2000

Anapaest

K. Vishnevsky: “(from the Greek anapeistos - reflected back) - a three-syllable meter, where stress falls mainly on 3, 6, 9, 12, etc. syllables.

Scheme A.

( _ _ ! ) ( _ _ !) ( _ _ ! ) ( _ _ ! ) ( _ _ !) ( _ _ !) and any number of syllables after the last stress, leaving the clause (see) and not counting the size .

In the 18th century it was rare, for example, in A. Sumarokov’s spiritual ode “Justice heaven, look...”. Most typical for the second half of the 19th century (N. Nekrasov, A. Fet). The most popular form is the trimeter A. The tetrameter is much less common:

People's houses are clean, bright,
But in our house it’s cramped, stuffy...
(N. Nekrasov, “Songs”).

Occasionally there is a two-footed one. And, as an exception, pentameter:

The shaggy branches of the pine trees were frayed by the storm,
The autumn night burst into tears of icy tears...
(A. Fet)"

( Turaev 1988).

* * *

For example, here is a modern - and precisely, one that is “as an exception” pentameter - anapest:

Because the art of poetry requires words,
I am one of the deaf, bald, sullen ambassadors
second-rate power associated with this -
not wanting to rape my own brain,
handing myself clothes, I go down to the kiosk
for the evening newspaper. The wind blows the leaves. Old light bulbs dim glow
in these sad lands, whose epigraph is the victory of mirrors,
with the assistance of puddles, it generates the effect of abundance.
Even thieves steal the orange by scraping the amalgam.
However, the feeling with which you look at yourself -
I forgot this feeling. In these sad lands everything is designed for winter: dreams,
prison walls, coats, white brides' toilets
New Year's, drinks, second hands.
Sparrow jackets and dirt according to the number of alkalis;
Puritan morals. Linen. And in the hands of violinists -
wooden heating pads. This region is motionless. Presenting the volume of gross
Cast iron and lead, you shake your head in shock,
remember the former government on bayonets and Cossack whips.
But the eagles land like a magnet on an iron mixture.
Even wicker chairs stay here
on bolts and nuts. Only fish in the seas know the price of freedom, but they
dumbness forces us, as it were, to create our own
labels and cash registers. And the space sticks out with a price list.
Time is created by death. Needing bodies and things
it looks for the properties of both in raw vegetables.
At night he listens to the chimes. To live in an era of achievements, having an exalted character,
unfortunately it's difficult. I lifted up the beauty's dress,
You see what you were looking for, and not new marvelous divas.
And it’s not that Lobachevsky is strictly watched here,
But the expanded world must end somewhere, and here -
this is the end of perspective. Either the map of Europe was stolen by government agents,
maybe five-sixths of the parts remaining in the world
too far away. Is it some kind of good fairy?
He casts a spell on me, but I can’t escape from here.
I pour myself some Cahors - don’t shout to the servant -
Yes, I scratch the cat. Or a bullet to the temple, as if in the place of a mistake with a finger,
or be pulled from here across the sea by the new Christ.
And how not to mix it up with drunken eyes, stunned by the frost,
a steam locomotive with a ship - you still won’t burn with shame:
like a boat on water, it will not leave a mark on the rails
locomotive wheel. What do they write in the newspapers in the section “from the courtroom?”
The sentence has been carried out. Looking here,
the average person sees through tin-rimmed glasses,
how a man lies face down against a brick wall;
but doesn't sleep. For to disdain dreams
perforated right. The vigilance of this era is rooted in those
times, incapable in their general blindness
distinguish those that have fallen out of cradles from those that have fallen out.
The white-eyed monster does not want to look further than death.
It’s a pity, there are plenty of saucers, but there’s no one to turn the table with,
To ask you, Rurik. The vigilance of these times is vigilance for things that are dead-end.
It’s not appropriate for the mind to run wild yet,
but spitting on the wall. And it’s not the prince who wakes up the dinosaurs.
For the last line, oh, you can’t snatch the bird’s feather.
To the innocent head of all things, why wait for the ax
yes green laurel. 1969, December (I. Brodsky. “The End of a Beautiful Era”)

I don't care about the drive - but it doesn't make much sense. There is too much idle talk. The first two stanzas - what are they about? that is, either what is stated in them is so profound that it is completely beyond my understanding, or there is no meaning in them at all, and this is just that, a musical introduction, an overture. The noise of an orchestra tuning.

And the third one is the same.

Yes, and in the fourth - the first three lines are crazy - but about the eagles, I again didn’t understand, what kind of eagles, what kind of dust, and what do they have to do with it?

Nevertheless, the poem is, of course, wonderful. Remarkable for its overall drive. And what exactly is communicated with this pressure - it turns out that it happens that it is not so important.

-------

Here! The closest equivalent to this kind of versification, this type of correlation of direct meaning and packaging material is rock music: it has a text that has “meaning” (conveying content), and there is “musical accompaniment” that has no “content”.

That’s how it is in this poem: some lines perform the function of “text” - they carry meaning, other lines and stanzas are “musical accompaniment”, creating drive, but having no content in themselves.

--------

Karabchievsky Yu. in “The Resurrection of Mayakovsky” noted: Brodsky’s poems do not have the property of memorability at all.

If you memorize them specifically, like a schoolchild or an actor, they themselves leave in memory only a general memory of something extremely grandiose and powerful, but not a single line from them   

This is a very true observation, and that is exactly what it is.

Here's why: yes, because there is nothing to remember!

Because it is very difficult to remember sets of words that are syntactically complex, but in fact have no meaning!

In this poem, one of Brodsky’s most famous, the meaning as such is contained exclusively in two places: in the one about “lifting up the beauty’s dress” and in the “representing the gross volume.” Everyone remembers these passages, everyone quotes these passages. And the rest is rhythmic noise, musical accompaniment.

* * *

In general, anapest, as I accidentally discovered, is an extremely successful size these days. He wrote, for example, such outstanding poetic works as S. Gandlevsky’s poem “Something about longing and separation” (see Gandlevsky ) or T. Kibirov’s poem “Through Farewell Tears” (see Kibirov ). (Both are trimeter anapest.)

Or, for example, dolnik (see) on an anapestic basis:

I. Brodsky

Edification

I
Traveling in Asia, spending the night in other people's houses,
in huts, bathhouses, storage sheds - in log towers,
whose smoked glasses keep space in check,
cover yourself with a sheepskin coat and run everywhere
lie with your head in a corner, because it is more difficult in a corner
swing - and in the dark - with an ax over her,
heavy from drinking earlier, and exactly
hack you to death. Fit the circle into the square. II
Fear the wide cheekbone, including the moon, pockmarked
cheek skin; prefer blue brown
eye - especially if the road leads into the forest,
into the thicket. In general, the main thing in the eyes is their cut,
because at the last moment it is better to see what
which - although colder - is more transparent than a coat,
for the ice can crack, and in the ice hole
It’s better to flounder than to lie in a lie as viscous as honey. III
Always choose a hut where they hang in the yard
diapers Hang out only with those who are under fifty.
A man at this age knows enough about fate,
to attribute something else to yourself at your expense;
the same thing - baba. Hide money in your collar
fur coats; and if you travel light -
in the trouser leg below the knee, but not in the boot: they will find it.
In Asia, boots are the first thing people steal. IV
In the mountains, move slowly: you need to crawl - crawl.
Majestic from afar, meaningless up close,
mountains are the shape of a surface placed on its butt,
and a seemingly horizontal winding path
essentially vertical. Lying in the mountains - you stand,
standing - lying down, proving that only
falling, you are independent. This is how fear is overcome,
dizziness over an abyss or delight in the mountains. V
Don’t respond to “Hey, boy!”, be deaf and dumb.
Even if you know the language, don't speak it.
Try not to stand out - in profile, in front, sometimes
I just don't wash my face. And when I saw
cut a dog's throat without wincing. Smoking, extinguish
cigarette in spittle. As for things, wear
gray, earth-colored; especially underwear,
to reduce the temptation to bury you in it. VI
Stopping in the desert, make up stones
an arrow, so that, suddenly waking up, you can immediately recognize by it
in which direction to move. Demons at night
in the desert they disturb the traveler. Hearing their words
can easily get lost, take a step to the side and you'll screw up.
Ghosts, spirits, demons - houses in the desert. You
You will see this for yourself, rustling the sand,
when only one soul remains of you. VII
Nobody ever knows anything for sure.
Looking at the conductor’s broad, dense back,
think that you are looking to the future and hold on
keep as far away from him as possible. Life
in essence, there is a distance between today and
tomorrow, otherwise - the future. And speed up your
the steps are only worth it if someone is chasing along the path
behind: killer, robbers, past, etc. VIII
In the sour spirit of rags, in the smell of dung
appreciate the indifference of a thing to view from afar
and you yourself lose your outline, unattainable for
binoculars, memories, gendarme or ruble.
Coughing in a cloud of dust, slurping through the dirt,
What difference does it make what you find yourself close to?
It's even better that the man with the knife
He won’t have time to think of you as a stranger. IX
Rivers in Asia appear longer than in other parts
light, richer in alluvium, that is, more cloudy; in handfuls,
when you scoop from them, what remains is silt,
and the one who drinks from them laments after what he drank.
Don't trust the reflection. Swim across to that
side only on the raft you knocked down.
Know that the glow of a fire at night on the shore,
sliding down the river, you will be betrayed to the enemy. X
In letters from these places, do not report
what I encountered along the way. But, rustling the leaf,
tell us about yourself, your feelings, etc. - letter
may be intercepted. And in general, itself
moving the pen along the paper is
widening gap with those who are more likely to sit down with
or you won’t be able to lie down with someone - contrary to the letter -
you won't see each other again. It doesn't matter why. XI
When you stand alone on an empty plateau, under
the bottomless dome of Asia, in whose blue the pilot
or an angel occasionally stirs up his starch;
when you involuntarily shudder, feeling how small you are,
remember: space to which nothing seems
not necessary, in fact needs a lot of
viewed from the outside, in the criterion of emptiness.
And only you can perform this service. ( Traveling in Asia, spending the night in other people's houses,
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 in huts, bathhouses, storage sheds - in log towers,
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 )

The first two or three feet - up to the caesura - are a completely regular anapest, which sets the general anapestic rhythmic inertia; after that, deviations begin (and quite subordinate to certain patterns, which I understand what they are, but I’m too lazy to formulate), and then in the next line again before the caesura - the correct anapest (well, often with a spondee on the first foot, but a spondee, like known, does not count).

As for the poem itself, it is, of course, extremely wonderful. In addition to its main advantage - extremely wonderful intonation and flexible and elastic rhythm - it is also a true description of Russia as it is: a grimy, cold, gloomy country, inhabited by gloomy, dangerous, secretive people, ready to kill for a penny, and who cannot be trusted at all. in anything and never, and who themselves never trust anyone in anything and not a penny. Where you can only live secretly, hiding and silently, pretending to be a Stirlitz and moving mostly by crawling, as if on the front line.

Russophobia?

No, the truth of life: all this is really true. Another thing is that not only this is exclusive, but this too is very much so.

Pobedonostsev, for example, who should be an indisputable authority for today's fighters against Russophobia. So he completely agrees with Brodsky: the well-known story described by Rozanov, how a delegation of “spiritually seeking” intelligentsia led by Merezhkovsky came to him and began to burst into nightingales: “This and that, public, culture, Russia...” Pobedonostsev in response to this , according to Rozanov, he didn’t even spit, but somehow released saliva onto the parquet and said: “Russia! What do you know about Russia! Do you know what Russia is? An icy desert, and in it - a man with an axe, That's what Russia is!"

All subsequent Russian history extremely confirmed the correctness of this view.

Anarchic mentality

were a fashionable hobby in the USSR among “advanced youth” in the second half of the 1980s. In the city of Tyumen, for example, in 1985-88 there was not a single more or less educated young person who did not declare himself to be a supporter of anarchy. The main reason for this was, I believe, the great reverence for the song "Anarchy in the United Kingdom", sung with terrible force by the Sex Pistols.

The anarchist love of Tyumen youths reached the point that a prominent local young man, at the same time the son of the first secretary of the City Committee of the CPSU, Shapovalov Yu., for example, as a sign of his respect for the ideas of anarchism, a large portrait of Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy, stolen from school, hung on the wall in his room. which brought Shapa’s parents into a state of complete confusion of feelings: their son had gone completely crazy!

It would be okay - not good, of course, but you can understand - naked women, okay - some hairy guys with guitars, but - Leo Tolstoy?!! A young modern guy?

Bewitched!!!

___________

With the beginning of bourgeois life in the USSR, however, everything turns 180 degrees in one second: all those who were previously fans of anarchy without borders in one second become statesmen, imperialists, Eurasians, admirers of Stalin, Hitler, Barkashov, Limonov, Dugin, the newspaper "Zavtra" and so on . and so on. - the same Shapovalov Yu., and Neumoev Roman, the leader of the rock group “Instructions for Survival”, which is quite fashionable in some circles, and Letov Egor - “Civil Defense”, and so on, and so on, and so on.

* * *

Now, since the late 1990s, it seems that a new fashion for left-ultra-radical rhetoric has begun: even members of the pop ensemble “Forbidden Drummers” in interviews talk with all their might about Che Guevara, Mao, Trotsky, Frantz Fannon, Regé Debra, and so on. and so on.