Hero with a fishing rod

“ And as He passed near the Sea of ​​Galilee, He saw two brothers, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting nets into the sea, for they were fishermen, and He said to them: Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men .”

Gospel of Matthew

“The fisherman sat cheerfully
On the river bank,
And in front of him in the wind
The reeds swayed.

He cut dry reeds
And drilled the wells
He pinched one end
It blew at the other end"

M. Yu. Lermontov Reed

Of all the purely male hobbies, women, it seems to me, are relatively favorable to fishing. Perhaps because they, who do not go too deeply into the details of a fisherman’s life: ah, all these mysterious jigs, donks, spinning rods, sinkers, floats, hooks - are more visible than we are the symbolic essence of the figure with a fishing rod, its belonging to eternity. At the same time, women are captivated by her simultaneous liveliness, sensuality, and unity with nature.

“Hands bare above the elbow,
And the eyes are bluer than ice.
The acrid, stuffy smell of tar,
Like a tan, it suits you.

And always, always open
The collar of the jacket is blue,
And the fishermen will just gasp,
Blushing in front of you"

(Anna Akhmatova “Fisherman”)

Irina Ermakova has a similar poem. In it, the fisherman goes from a thematic plane to a figurative, allegorical one.

"There is no one
there is no one in the world
there is no one in the world better than you
well - no one when
hanging over the water
you cast a fishing rod - and
veins bulge under the sleeve of a striped T-shirt...

Complete silence
life in a fist, pupils on a hook
the fishing line unwinds and crosses out the gaps
and the sinker flies silently like a smart bullet
until the very end of the world

And there and from there from the wasted darkness
rush towards the catcher blinded features
random - erasing the absurdity of fear"

So much for the “fisher of men.”

The inevitability of the appearance of this image in Ermakova’s poetry is largely due to the context of her own life. She has always lived and lives on the shore: first of the Black Sea, permeated with the spirit of antiquity, and then to this day of the Moscow River, picturesque in Kolomenskoye and coal with “black fish” in Nagatino.

Any amateur fisherman knows that the choice of location largely determines the effectiveness of fishing. Initially, it becomes Kolomenskoye, popular among Muscovites in sunny weather: “ On the best afternoon in Kolomenskoye with a fishing rod in a light hand / You can see anything in the transparent river...”. The poem merges two wonderful pastimes into one: reading in the lap of nature and fishing. Basho, Dante, Pushkin, Baudelaire, Homer, Nazon, Shakespeare - universally recognized geniuses - are likened to fish. At the end of the poem, “ Christ dives, shaking his blue fin...”. He, the only one caught on the hook, pulls the fisherman, who has been melted in the sun, absorbed in contemplating the riches of the underwater world, behind him. Which is quite logical, since the author at the very beginning declares the hero’s relationship with fish: “ a school of my wondrous conspirators is scurrying around.”

That is, a fisherman is a poet who, for the time being, stands on the shore of human culture, life, observing its flow and history. Christ calls him to follow him, to “come down from Parnassus.”

At sunset, in this story there is a place for Brodsky: “the writhing eyelid rounds off its course with a blush / the everlasting wet paper boat sails.” The choice of the listed personalities is not accidental. All these authors, drawing inspiration from the life around them, did not disdain its prosaic details. This poem is an attempt by Ermakova to construct a family tree of her own poetry.

The image of the “fisherman” becomes a plot-forming image in several more poems. In the poem “Willow” the fisherman also becomes part of the surrounding landscape.

“The drops on the rod are shining like buds
Do you remember how a detachment passed along the shore?
silently the water rang out
bent willow branch" oud blossomed with a

It is interesting that one of the symbolic meanings of this tree is salvation, resurrection. The motif of “fisherman’s tales” appears, through which the poet is again recognized in the image of the “fisherman”. The shore of Ermakov is populated by birds: nightingale warbler, robin. In the future, the image of “birds” will become an integral part of this topos, as well as the images of “water”, “sun”, “plants”.

Birds for Ermakova are muses. As soon as the fisherman casts his fishing rod, they immediately begin to sing: “... and a herd of pianos is already dancing in the bushes / the keys are rocking as they fall from their hands / flapping their wings and dropping sound into the grass.” They, like the “sun,” are signs of the Apollonian principle in life and an integral part of the coastal landscape.

The later poem “Light” is interesting in that its hero, “neighbor Euripides,” catches fish (and these are no longer the pillars of humanity, but “bottom clay fish”) not in the clear river in Kolomenskoye, but in the “muddy thrashing tackle” in Nagatinsky backwater. That is, the poet is inspired by ordinary human life, which, despite its wretchedness, is the bearer of heavenly light. Each time, Euripides releases his catch back into the river. The meaning of the allegory is that, according to Ermakova, art is designed to remind humanity of its spirituality.

“ But why, great neighbor,
you release them in jars full
burning for the railing?
- So that they walk and remember, remember. »

Adjacent to this text is the poem “Fishermen ,” which is reminiscent of a fable in genre. Its plot is a dispute between two avid fishermen (again, but in an expanded manner, Ermakova uses the motif of “fishing tales”). One of them, our friend - Euripides - claims that he almost caught a sterlet in the Moscow River. The old men's furious argument turns into a fight. The name of the second, Sophocles, which appears in the last line, immediately transfers the “discussion” to the category of literary ones. Two writers argue about the authenticity and vitality of their works. Moreover, vitality is a criterion that determines quality. It’s funny how grandfathers accuse each other of stealing nets, hooks, that is, a creative method.

“ Our fishermen have such a custom,
a net hangs down and pokes another in the mug:
“ Did you cut my hooks on Wednesday?”

From all of the above, it follows that Ermakova created a corpus of texts:

1) united by one image of the “fisherman”, which reveals the theme of the “poet”;

2) the action of these poems takes place in similar topoi. On the bank of a transparent river, on a hot summer day, in Kolomenskoye there is lush vegetation, birds singing. This idyllic picture is an allegory of the bright sides of life and its union with the sun - poetry, or more precisely, with its Apolonian rational essence. Or this is the bank of a muddy, stinking river, bound by ice and granite - in order to catch something worthwhile from it, you will have to be patient and put in a lot of effort. In any most wretched, deepest life one can see spiritual light - poetry, and difficulties only increase the value of the spoils;

3) the plots of these poems form similar motifs. Of course, the main one is fishing, and the secondary ones are “dives”, “dissolution”, “convergence”, “fisherman’s fables”. Each of the secondary motives is present to varying degrees of activity in all poems.

4) in conclusion, I would like to once again emphasize the unity of object and subject in these verses.

" But in a vest at the very edge
with a faithful stick an idiot sits
and like scales sparkling with heat,
catches, waits . "

If we go further, we can see that to express the theme of “poet” and “poetry” Ermakova builds a whole figurative paradigm. It includes, in addition to the “fisherman”, also the images of: “flutist”, “Pan”, “Marcia”, “orchestra”, “shepherdess” and the author himself sitting on the river bank.

“Time is long, long, like water.
I wish I could sit above this water forever.
I wish I could sit under this tree.
Just sit and look into this water.”

Their identity is confirmed by common motives and being in a similar landscape.

The motif of “bringing together the world of the bottom and the spiritual” is, for example, the plot-forming one in the poem “Immersion” : “The orchestra plays afloat - the earth is abolished / the earth at the bottom play to the bottom play as I live... play - I’m telling you this like a fish / play play my light at least once / because I can see from the bottom / all this life / all this jazz / all this silence.”

And Ermakova’s Marcy walks “in the Sunday flea market, / in the thunderous January Kolomenskoye in the local music. / Only the oncoming flutist, falling down on the magic beer, / having taken a decent sip, will see the transparent back.” Isn’t this the same case as the “fisherman” from the poem “Willow” - a lover of the same magical drink that loosens the tongue and sharpens the senses:

" Above the linden-elm trees there are warblers and nightingales
speak, tell me your best
foamy beer ferments , fat bumblebee buzzes
your friend lies dead in this burdock.”

Pan from the poem of the same name is “a clever player hidden by a steamy stream.” The sound of his flute is alluring: “ does your cunning decoy regularly tear out hearts?” With the help of a fishing rod you catch “big and small fish,” and with the help of a flute you catch animals, birds, gods, “fat poets” and even the dead. They are similar - a fishing rod and a pipe: the material from which both instruments are made is “ecological”: stick, willow, reed. It is curious that in the later poem “Time is long, long, like water...” the poet himself becomes the instrument:

“...and from all sides birds fly towards me.
They stuck around so reverently, just like me -
head-arms-legs – harmony.
It’s as if they’re going to try to play on me now.
As if there are no barriers to them in me.”

In my opinion, the leitmotif of Irina Ermakova’s entire work is an attempt to reconcile two lives - one meaningful, reasonable, high, life of the spirit, with the other deep life, unconscious, dark and wretched, which most people live.

“And Phoebus notices the enemy and blushes with anger... But he himself does not know whether he is burning with love or anger.”

After all, it is clear that it is impossible for one to exist without the other.