Culture has always been a means of saving national identity. Ukrainian is not an exception. And today, Ukrainian culture faces serious challenges: in addition to its identity, everything produced under the brand “Ukrainian culture” should also be a modern, competitive, and interesting international community. And who is better than a creative person can describe at the level of feelings and reflections the challenges of the present? On the life of contemporary poets, their requests and aspirations, Zhytomyr.Travel told Zhytomyr.Travel the Zhytomyr poet, the winner of the poem contest “Poetic melody” of Ivan Kovalenko Youth Art Festival, poetry competition “Klement of the Autumn” named after Yurko Gudzia, the author of the collections “Sraghla D’ZHAGA” “Music of a Window Piano” by Kateryna Marchuk
“I often ask parents. They are simple people, far from poetry. Sometimes external circumstances are such that we are not able to disclose all our resources now, but it is revealed later. Having parents who absolutely did not understand what this child is reading at night, I pulled to my grandfather, who was very close to my eyes on the world. He had no higher education, but he had a natural sense of the word, an understanding of the natural world. He felt every move, not lazy to explain to me everything: why the leaves are yellow, why the ants rush up the tree and do not fall? And this was a very valuable period for me. Parents of creative children should not forget that children are not only their continuation, they are the continuation of the whole family. Without thinking about what were the previous generations that they carried in themselves, it is very selfish for parents to equate the child to themselves and see in it only the continuation of oneself”
“I write poetry from school again, but I did not seriously address this until the third year of the university. Then I realized that everything was serious. Volodymyr Shynkaruk pulled me out of my ears on the scene, he gave impetus, a belief in himself. Then – Petro Bilous, Volodymyr Bilobrovets. With their easy hand and support everything has begun. I published my own collection, printed in the periodical, but never set myself the primary goal. For me, the sound of poetry is more valuable and important than its materialization”
“Successful in our time is considered a non-lethal poet. We live in an era when everyone has to advertise, promote himself. And this has a lot of resources: you have to be self-promoted, you must be mobile, open, flexible and adaptive. I now have a very intense period of development in my family, career, and poetry remains, unfortunately, a little bit of time. But since the internal need remains, I periodically show literary activity. I am waiting for the time when I can return to the literature “face”, because this should either be given entirely or not at all”
“Poetry – ephemeral and subtle matter. Forcibly you will not love her. I think it’s a huge nonsense to force children to love poetry. It is impossible. But there are no people who do not like or do not understand poetry, they just did not find theirs. In our time, there are many kinds of poetry, its directions, and everyone in all that diversity can find something of their own. But how to look for it? What route to go? From here it is necessary that someone directed, helped. As for me, the task of mentors, teachers, parents, teachers of educational institutions is to give children access to such information as poetry, which from the beginning was a means of spiritual purification, spiritual enrichment. It has a direct impact on emotions and feelings without mediation of stories and stories. Therefore, the more young people, the children will hear poetry and feel it, then love will come. Come herself. Often, it does not happen through the print media! Well, an incapable person, a child without the preparation to perceive such a text, but when he sounds and goes to the emotion, this way is more productive. So I’m for the fact that poetry sounds”
“There are practices of reading poetry, but they are more common in large cities. These are Kyiv, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Kharkiv – the cities where creative young people gather. There are more ways to implement not only poetic projects, but also creative ones. This may be what we call the synthesis of arts. Now these are very cool projects where poetry and music are combined, poetry and painting, music and painting. They go where there are people who can finance projects. In fact, the financial aspect is very important. That is why in larger cities there are more powerful creative centers, there are literary schools where the older generation supports the younger ones. What do we have in Zhytomyr? We have grains from which we have to form an environment. Because the older poetic generation is also sparse in Ukraine”
“In Zhytomyr, we have those who are left. They often go to different “literary cabbages”, as we call them, or artistic parties, but often they are chamber meetings that come to hear each other, to talk to a cup of coffee. Often these meetings for the older generation take place in the literary museum, the younger are periodically trying to open within the educational institutions, try to go out into the city, in the art cafes, which are now open. The creative youth tends to evolve, but it is usually those who do not have great material resources. To get a closed circle. But in the end, when they finish school, they also go somewhere in search of prospects”
“Project activity can be taken when you have time. If you do the rest of the time, you will not get anything. I understand that the future of the project activity … But if we talk about those who are just trying to start, they are not competitive in the project activity. Of course I would like to find a cell that would broadcast the relevant experience, so that there are people who want to work in the team. It is a decent personality to get out of the situation, because usually creative people are bad managers, bad economists. And if there is a team, then it will be a success”
“I can not say that we have an institute of literary agents. If it is, then it is not advertised. Famous writers promote themselves. If you look at the mobile, powerful, those who are now considered popular, for example, Serhiy Zhadan, we see that he is active himself. This activity is both geographic and informational. He is “himself a director” and in social networks, and in meetings with readers. How interesting you are – depends on you. It is important, as far as you are charismatic, artistic, as far as you are mobile, ready to leave everything and get stroke, go, get used to new conditions”
“There has always been a social component in poetry. Poets were the first to react to various social changes, no matter how they were, raised social themes. But since poetry is a refined thing, which is not always easy to perceive, it is different. It can not be said that there is a specific poet, whose creativity has only a social orientation. The poet reacts to social problems, but he is not asking them to limit their eyes to people. In poetry, every image is a cluster of emotions, already ready, experienced. I agree that social poetic projects have the right to life”
“Talking about” female “and” male “poetry is difficult. Rather, we can talk about masculinity and femininity in creativity. By the way, interesting research was conducted. Readers were given poetry, and they had to determine who the author of the poetry: a man or a woman. And they did not always get to the point. It happens that the poet in life is fragile and tender, and in poetry is very masculine – a kind of compensation. The process of creating poetry – a process of sublimation of the energy that does not go out in the activity, but proceeds in creativity. And vice versa: a man who in his life acts as a male type, can be extremely delicate, fragile in poetry. Periodically, attempts are made to divide poetry into “feminine” and “male”, but, as for me, do not divide”
“Now I am teaching psychological disciplines for future psychologists, but I have chosen for myself a range of disciplines that relate to the psychology of creativity. This is something that is close to me, in whatever I would like to go further, to do something for Zhytomyr. In the future, I would like to implement a project related to the study of the psychology of creativity of Zhytomyr artists”
“The theme” Zhytomyr and creativity “is very ancient, and literary critics and writers themselves periodically return to it. Why, with such teachers as Borys Ten, Valerii Shevchuk, Eugene Kontsevych, Yurko Gudz, we do not build “Zhytomyr Literature”? Unfortunately, we do not always remember that poets and writers are living people, and living people need to earn a living for daily bread. Maybe there is some kind of magic in the city of Zhytomyr – the magic of the nebula. It is very well written here, it is extremely good, but it is very difficult to appear here. Therefore, many consciously, and maybe unknowingly, come here to gain a resource, collect material and then go somewhere to implement it”
“I would like to meet different generations of Zhytomyr writers – poets and writers. The meeting, at which the exchange of experience was held, established relations that in the future would give an extension at the national level. That the older generation could support young people, give a powerful impetus to the development of creative Zhytomyr people. And of course, I would modernize the literary life of Zhytomyr region, starting with poetic bloodships that have long been popular all over the world, including in Ukraine. It would be desirable to put the microphone on the open ground, and that any of the presenters could read poems, or hold competitions readers. Anyone from the audience asks the topic, and the poets are right here, in place, to compose something, to bury, to create poetry on a given subject. In this way, the viewer sees that they really work, that it is not somewhere, not “drawn to the ears”, everyone is a participant in a living creative process, and this always raises the level of trust”
Translated by Aliona Matushevich
