From the zone of non -person actions

To World Poetry Day about the new book of Gennady Katsov "On the Western Front"

“You can’t put a charged gun on the stage if no one means shooting from it. You can’t promise, ”wrote Anton Chekhov. The nameless time distorted the quote: "If a gun hangs on the wall, it should shoot in the third act." River, giving a doom: a shot in it is inevitable. Vladimir Nabokov, in one of the plays, bloomed this shot hopelessness: "If in the first action the gun hangs on the wall, then in the latter it should give an misfire." And then, in the discussion of Nikolai Gogol, he noticed that “Gogol’s guns hang in the air and do not shoot; <...> The charm of his hints is that they do not materialize in any way. ” There are many of them on the agenda, these shots-point-blank and in the back, deafening and idle, well-aimed and deadly. If you can’t fail, it’s better on paper, in Pushkin. So in the new book of Gennady Katsov “On the Western Front”, a gun is depicted on each turn. And the world here (the theme of this poetic collection is truly universal) does not promise peaceful. The shots are distributed through the stanza, through the page, through the exhale from the read. Aiming and warning at the same time. And, as this (not) rarely happens among poets, in the very soul.

"On the Western Front" Katsov, unlike the Remarkovo change, are significant - covid. The subtitle “Poems about the war of 2020”, which has a subtitle, does not need to be indicated by the warring parties. This invisible fight led to visible consequences for everyone and everyone. Something cracked in our usual life and being. As in the old tango: "Everything was as it was - and everything is wrong." A tangible or asymptomatic new other walks along the planet, where life is squeezed into the gap between the PCR and the vaccines (which are also fighting among themselves).

Gennady Katsov began the chronicle of an unenviable covid era from its first days. In order to supervise the sensations with poets from different countries, united not only by a common disaster, but also by the Russian language, he, together with his wife Ricka Katsova, became the author of the unique virtual anthology “Coronaverse - verses of coronavirus time”, which absorbed the texts written during and under the influence of 2020 pandemia. “Coronaverse” is the texts and videos of the author’s reading of the works, as well as weekly virtual discussions about how it survived and experienced in that leap year, which gave an extra February day and plunged the remaining 365 into the black hole of Locksuns, quarantins and self -defensive. Fortunately, they made up a rare chronicle. Unfortunately, she has not lost relevance to this day.

“Kvidies”, “Actuals”, “Personals”-these are three parts and part of the new book of one of the organizers of the famous Moscow club “Poetry” and a participant in the underground group “Epsilon-Salon”. They are built in chronological and chronic order, because, in fact, they represent the history of a protracted, unheated disease. It affects hearts and minds, leads to unrest and confusion, paralyzes life and emotions, forcing to rethink what could not really be comprehended. A turning point? Only a fracture something does not grow together. Yes, and the total social distance does not contribute to rapprochement (“Live, if you keep a distance, but someone has come off it”). Here, poetry comes to the rescue as "days connecting thread."

"On Western ..." as in West. The life of a monotonous life during the pandemic period for the “hostages” for the poet turned out to be diverse. This book leads from the flight along the heavenly surface to the Last Judgment, not looking up from the Earth’s embraced anxiety. Katsov’s poetry is not about empires and abstract concepts, but about the events and phenomena with which the newspapers and nerves are broken. Since 1989, a journalist and publicist, who has been working in the time with Peter Vile on Radio “Freedom” ( the Ministry of Justice of Russia recognized the “foreign agent”) and to this day the leading political programs on the national Russian-American television channel Gennady Katsov is not afraid of sharp painfuls in the United States, pogroms, new ethics and other “foam of the days”. But not factology and momentary dominates here. They are only an occasion to talk with the reader about the causes and consequences, lessons and associations that time pushes. Actually, just the ability to see time distinguishes the verses adjacent to this book. From the bitterness of sensations to bitter irony, the author leads the reader, bowing along the way with Brodsky, Voznesensky, Falkner, Marquez and further along the book shelves (stress to choose from), involving the reader in a game filled with the joy of recognition, solving the Sharad in this poetic quest-stress: “Find the potential to use the zones and hidden / from the latent Non -willed actions / Try to get out alive <...> Swim to your yoknapatof / where there is a long time as sores / and the carnival era / you give her the name Nevormore "

Poetic paths lead to extraordinary and paradoxical inferences and parallels. Yes, and humor, they say that with this adversity, humanity is very healing is very healing (“There should be a short advertisement in this place / about the danger of pollution of the world with virtual spam”).

“On the Western Front” of the Blesses of Changes: “Empires fall with thunder, / the throne is staggering before the throne - / Following the Fatum modestly, / Keep your last cartridge / then the Spring crisis will come, / then the crisis after it is oil - / I am not repentant, / I am opposed by all costs ...” Changing, crumbling, mutating that his virus, peace in the lines, world in the lines The Association with Military Firing in bursts recruited completely in lowercase letters discovers its fragility and shakiness, which is why the repeated mention of the vortex, storms and hurricanes in the book. Poems and elements here are "mutual."

The arrows of the time on the pages of the book are also brave arrows: “Time in the klepsidr must have completely expired, / two months flowed out of the pastime: / those who died before the tsunami, were still lucky, / if we take into account a number of events of the current year.” Poems, which, even in their first lines collected in the table of contents, make up something like verliba, it would seem, go circles around the main topic of the day, the month, the second year from the Christmas Covid-19, but, in fact, diverge in circles. Not Dange and not by water, if there is water here, then fiery. There is air (the spirit of the time), and a tree (a tree of life with cracks), and earthly craving for memories, to return to yesterday, full of a vacuum familiar against the vaccine. No matter how gloomy the moods and prophecies of Gennady Katsov, written (forces), as if in the atmosphere of “wartime”, among many “shots” of his poetic collection there is a salvo volleys: “And each on this day will be involved / and will work for the victory, / and everyone will go out for happiness / in the thirty -seventh year ...” And in the news, more and more about thirty -seventh, and in the news and in the news, and in the news. air. So will we win?

Comrade on political correctness

Comrade! I hasten to share with reverence
(lead to the province for a long time)
that I went through in the final reading
The law on color correction in nature!
The one that we are in the youth of the pink
conceived with you decisively together,
fighting for the correctness of verses and prosts -
Now triumphantly approved in Congress.

Vivat! From the day after tomorrow in the entire Universe
It will happen, at least standing in the shower applaud:
with white dwarfs - in the corrected version
There will be politely, white holes,
The only bright matter will appear -
Let less puzzles: honestly, and Marco,
and in order to speed up this process, started
On Saturday, start with the "obelisk" of the remark,

With the libretto of Tchaikovsky, first of all,
so that the "swan is neutral" - they gave the nickname,
And then, among the inevitable other things,
Let's take the "red with red" Stendhal,
For the white river where Pushkin was banged,
for the White Sasha, the poet from God,
and Martina King - he is completely neglected
In color, and there is little accent.

Here I will give white humor, so as not pathos
A register of upcoming events was read:
Let the White Mamba bites picos
And the white widow so that the male is not offended,
The same square will call Kazimirov
(this is how the suitcase became a mysterious coffee),
and the color of the drink with glorious
We will give the name - "Silent color of coffee."

Comrade! I will express you white pastu
On a white sheet, absorbing Gene with a tonic:
Let the difficult service have a dangerous service,
And the secrets are tied, for Daltonics,
We are building such equality now,
which you can’t put it right away!
And it would be faster until we were sent
In the house (how is it?) Black! Do not remember, comrade?

Gennady Katsov