Известия Уральского федерального университета. Серия 2: Гуманитарные науки (Jun 2019)
The Poetological Introspection of the Modern Poet (with Reference to the Lyrical Poetry of Yulia Kokoshko)
Abstract
This article considers two recently published books by Yulia Kokoshko, a poet from Yekaterinburg, Under the Bridge and over the Bridge (2016) and Dusk. Sweet Milkman (2018). The books are interesting because they are dominated by poetological issues and the author mainly focuses on the phenomenon of creative consciousness in its newest version. Yulia Kokoshko has an outstanding gift of poetological vision, making introspection of her own poetic experience; together with that, she provides a general diagnosis of the state of modern poetry in its relation to the past tradition. The author’s voice in her lyrical poetry, asserting itself in both first-person forms — “I” and “we”, testifies on behalf of the cumulative “modern poet”, who is looking for their way in the chaos of hard times. The attempted synthesis of modern poetic intentions is masterfully realised by Kokoshko directly in the style itself, the phenomenon of the “modern poet” is represented through its stylistic image. The article discusses how style semantisation is carried out at different levels of expressive means: in the peculiarities of syntax aimed at creating grammatical disorder, in which there is no “fundamental” connecting thought, everything is piled up, like on a table after a feast; in the chaos of word usage, reaching extreme contrasts in its range from scholarly terminology to slang expressions; in the methods of parodying the metaphorical dictionary of tradition. All these tools are designed to recreate the situation of linguistic Sodom, in which there is no hierarchy, where linguistic extremes are mixed without distinction — writing and speaking, high poetry and farce. In the conditions of an inverted world, survival becomes the main goal of poetry in such conditions, and the most relevant, from the point of view of the poet, is the Hamlet version of the resistance of time: the cultural function of the traditional poet’s word gives way to the destructive irony of a trickster, a harlequin poet, who is aware that the “time to throw stones” has come.
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