Andrey Sen-Senkov: "Creativity saves from chaos"

- Do you remember how you, as a child, first came into contact with poetry? Did your parents often read poetry to you? At what age did you write your first poem?

- In my childhood, I did not contact with poetry. Me and Poetry - We lived in parallel worlds. Poems are floated - as in an aquarium. Behind the glass lived multi-colored Pushkins, swam back and forth, especially without disturbing me. All that everything covered me later. I was eighteen years old. To a fellow student girl was sent bilingual books of Mandelstam by her relatives from the Germany. I took the book to read. For half a day I copied and rewrite the entire book. I’ve been in trap, in general. And about my first poem ... I do not remember. From those poems that were published, probably, I was twenty one-twenty two years old.

Could you tell us, please, how do you write? How is the process going?

- Most recently I refused at last from a pen and paper, for example. Still, the computer defeated the ink. And it's always written in different ways. Sometimes it's a cycle, there's a deep immersion in the subject at first. I read about the history of Esperanto or eunuchs in China. Or there I take a look at the pictures of Rothko for weeks. And then all somehow the mass becomes critical, and micro breaks begin in the form of words, lines ... And sometimes the poem is written in a few minutes. Just flies like a bird. You just need to find fast salt, pepper and beautiful cutlery...

– Sometimes people say that creativity opens any doors, even to the heart. Do you agree with this statement?

- Well, it does not open anything. It saves you from chaos. You at least slightly structure the areas surrounding the insanity

- Could you share the story of creating one of your poems, which you consider very interesting?

-I'm afraid that there are none. Or do not remember. Well, here, for example, this – “12 DAYS OF CRITICAL SINGING”

.

Cicada does not sing,

Cicada howls,

Yells from horror

In front of the sun

Cicada hotly painfully

Unbearably yellow

Daily burns

Of a small calf,

Could you imagine

How the face

Of this unfortunate

Insect

Looks like

It is just as difficult

To imagine

The taste of the word coffee

When it is feminine

.

Cicada does not sing

Like a woman howling

In an olive grove

Among other same participants

In the beauty contest

Who did not get the sun

In the first place

To imagine

How the face

Of this screaming insect looks

As difficult

As imagining

A long happy life

A pebble in a boot

His calm old age

And death in Circle

Scattered between the fingers

Of the family

I just lived 12 days in front of a huge olive grove and in the daytime they shouted and screamed billions of Cicadas. When a Cicada is one - it's beautiful. But when they are so many Cicadas it’s just as Dante's Hell. So I went home, and not to forget it I wrote the text.

- And how do you feel about the division of poetry into masculine and feminine?

- bad attitude)

- With the historical change in the female role in society, female poetry began to acquire a more interesting shade and a more rich content. Is not it?

- With rare exceptions, I do not see women in my favorite women poets. I see a man who does not differ from me in any way

- Young poets often imitate the great authors. Tell us how to overcome this moment and develop your own style?

-Just do not try to write like one of the poets. It is necessary to focus on the neighboring arts. Write so that the poem sounds like a string on the bass guitar of the Pastorius or in it additional screens blink like Greenaway's

- What does the word "modern poet" mean for you?

- A person signed to NASA news, reading and knowing about what is happening in poetry in other languages, waiting for the new album Xiu Xiu, well, a person with a thousand eyes.

- What else is your hobby?

– I have collection of African masks, I can show card tricks, with my cat Tesla we watch HBO series...

- What authors are you advised to read to our readers? Name a couple of poets and prose writers please.

- Никакого не имеет. Просто наугад выбранная дата. А молодым поэтам желаю молодых поэтесс. И поэтессам поэтов.

- Спасибо Вам за интервью!

- You can enumerate many of them ... but last year the best books of poetry were two translated books of Sergey Zhadan and the debut book of Oksana Vasyakina. I no longer read prose. I don’t have enough forces, desires and time for that.

-And finally, everyone knows that March 21 is a world day of poetry. What does this holiday mean for you? And your wishes to the young poets.

-It does not mean a thing for me. It’s just randomly selected date. My wish to young poets is - young poetesses. And to young poetesses - young poets.

- Thank you for the interview!

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