‘The poetry’s domain is shrinking like a piece of shagreen — and primarily in people’s hearts’

Abstract

Kekova’s new interview recorded by E. Konstantinova shows a combined portrait of Kekova as a poet adhering to the ‘neoclassical’ tradition of 20th-c. metaphysical poetry as well as a scholar specialising in works by A. Tarkovsky and N. Zabolotsky and their intertextual relations. The interview raises the issues of contemporary philological research, the tradition of Christian poetics, of ‘sermon’ in literature, and the legacies of the Silver and Golden Ages. According to Kekova, Tarkovsky’s and Zabolotsky’s poetic oeuvres have more in common with the Golden rather than Silver Age, hence their rejection of the delusions of Symbolism and the yearning for philosophical comprehension of their place in the world; she admits to sharing this pursuit as a poet. Kekova’s on point comments to poems by her beloved authors ensure better understanding of her own poetics, and Konstantinova’s questions reveal their semantic and stylistic interconnectedness.