Fourth

Timur Kibirov received the National Poet Prize

Timur Kibirov became the laureate of the Poet Prize, following Alexander Kushner (2005), Olesya Nikolaeva (2006) and Oleg Chukhontsev (2007). Which is to be expected.

Just over two decades ago, when his first publications appeared, it was very difficult to hear any previously unknown poet: the perestroika breakthrough of muteness was accompanied by an unimaginable roar, in the chaos of which sharply individual voices were lost. Kibirov was heard immediately. It was not a matter of political urgency - there were plenty of temperamental freedom lovers in the second half of the 80s. And not in the exquisite game of reminiscences, which philological readers eagerly began to catch - the centon technique was practiced (sometimes successfully) even before Kibirov. It was a matter of incredible inner freedom, which made it possible to combine confession of the utmost intensity with high and happy play, sobbing with pure and light (without a shadow of mockery) laughter, unconditional modernity with organic participation in the great tradition.

My business smells like kerosene, / kerosene, my dear side, / it smells like “Chypre”, like a shaved man, / and like a woman, “Red Moscow” <...> Do you smell, do you smell what it smells like? - I feel, / I feel, Lord, I won’t hold my nose - / “Belomor”, Suchan, Vilyuy, / a holiday home in the blue Crimea! <...> Unwashed dorm fornication,/ and gasoline on a ride at night,/ smells like the Motherland - can you smell it? - a miracle, / a miracle, incense, Good News! <...> It smells like something fried, it smells like something burnt,/ it smells like an allergen - it’s a shame!/ It smells like my work, it smells like my body,/ It smells like tears, Lyudmila, mine. This witchcraft mixture of smells, this overwhelming pain, this loyalty to the one who is ready to collapse, by all accounts - cursed , but unconditionally dear, with all its misfortunes - his own home, this hidden hope, this aspiration for the world showed a real miracle. What only yesterday seemed unpronounceable, hung in the kitchen tobacco smoke, twisted in mocking omissions, was ashamed to seem funny and absurd, suddenly and forever took on verse flesh. Mozart! Soon I will leave/ for a nomadic wagon./ At the Margrave’s for dinner/ I won’t, dear <...> Do you know the region? I myself don’t know/ what this wonderful land is,/ but there, there, there I/ must follow, my dear. // Who goes where - and I’m off to Russia,/ I’m going to the goldfinch’s homeland./ White frost, blue chintz./ Mozart, Mozart! It’s time for me <...> And I’m going, I’m going to Russia, / I looked back - he’s standing. / Through the fatal spaces / Mozart is looking after me. //Waving, waving his cocked hat,/ in a golden ray of grief,/ and from the Lousy Hill/ I waved my earflaps./ I’ll be a bastard - I won’t forget/ our friendship, little boy,/ because always, everywhere with me/ your funny chipmunk./ And warmed up under his quilted jacket,/ his nimble paws folded,/ he sings, and I walk/ to that magical tune.

So we walked with Kibirov for twenty years - through “Common Places” and “Sentiments”, “Paraphrasis” and “Notations”, “Ostrovityanova Street” and “Anniversary of the Lyrical Hero”. They walked and remembered that behind the soul/ there is a gold reserve, an unshakable rock.../ And in our cruel age, it really shouldn’t be for us/ to whine and sulk. They walked, observed the present historical reality in its revolutionary development, received a turnaround, scratched their heads, climbed the wall, got bruises and bumps, rage in vain (and not in vain, it must be admitted, either), lost and found friends, played the fool ( it happened that they were considered smart), and when they were very tired (or on an unexpected inspiration), they made a halt and moved the vials (they are also mugs, plastic cups, amphoras and brothers) and... So let's drink the first one for the asters, / pour the second one - - for the outcome, / we will fill the third, - and that’s it, / because the Lord loves the Trinity! // So let’s drink to our victory, / like the Soviet spy in the film, / so that I can find out everything / and escape in time, like him.

But that time has not yet come. Letters are still being built in the best order in order to “still sneak in and steal at least one single child from this insolent, triumphant, screaming with a great voice, all-consuming silence, in order to stupefy him with this “stolen air” and snatch him away forever into the world of sweets. sounds and, probably, prayers, into the fatal expanse of jubilant, mourning, glorifying, blaspheming phonemes, morphemes and syntagmas and the milky way of melancholy and freedom, so that this song, in which “so much has been invested,” will never, never die away fruitlessly. Uf-f-f!..” Indeed: uff-f-f... This is from Kibirov’s new book “Three Poems” (M., “Time”, 2008), which ends with a funny and captivating gloss on an undeniably hooligan rhyme. Before citing this - the last word for today - from Kibirov, I consider it necessary to make a lyrical digression. Every time I end an opus destined for publication with a quotation, I feel embarrassed - it seems impressive, but my signature will be placed next, and I can’t think of such a thing in my life. Every time I'm embarrassed, but this time I'm not. Because just as twenty-odd years ago, having read Kibirov for the first time (by chance, having never heard of him before), I knew for sure, so now, on the day when he was awarded the Poet Prize, I know for sure: these are poems written not only for our entire generation, but personally for me , poems where all the sounds and intonations (not to mention the meanings) are mine, poems without which I simply would not be myself. This is a turn of the topic that does not at all lead away from the flinty path.

So just in case - that is / Whatever happens in the future / We, the jerks, must endure, / We will meet it prepared. / The honor was offered - / Take care, and all things. / God will not give it away, the pig will not eat it, / If it is preserved it will be an honor. // You go, Stepan, go, / Despite the frost, / Threats and psychoses! / Every opportunity is ahead!

Andrey NEMZER