Author: Mariam Mebuke

“ARS POETICA”

“Here, memory hears the rustle of wings

 And dreams darken like Rodenbachs.”

Shalva Karmeli (Gogiashvili) – “Kutaisi-Dead Bruges”

Sometimes, speaking of Kutaisi without poetry feels strange and even unnatural. So, like Karmeli, it’s time to bring “the memory of Elena to Imereti.” Usually, at this time, we first remember the “Blue Horns,” including Paolo Iashvili and Titian Tabidze, who sometimes waited for Tamunia Tsereteli near Ananuri (Titian Tabidze – the poem “Near Ananuri”), and sometimes brought their mother to the Virgin Mary, asking Her to teach her to pray for her son (Paolo Iashvili – “Letter to Mother”). Besides them, we must also mention other members of the Symbolist Poets’ Union, and those unfairly called “lost boys of the Order.” Remembering this, we often recall that place from “People’s Sorrow,” where it is written: “It bothers me that we do not know the beginning of everything, visible and invisible.” Many invisible things are worth making visible to us. We need to see those whose creations (despite their scarcity) most make us feel the spirit and authenticity of Kutaisi, allowing us to travel every corner and see the city of the first half of the 20th century, to experience Paolo’s emotions while writing “The First Word,” and to understand what the words “Love the Meek Mysteries, the immersion in the flame of what was glorified in the past” should really mean. Sandro Tsereteli – one of those surrounded by these mysterious mysteries. The mosaic Virgin Mary personifies the city where a mad deacon can love the Virgin so much that he wants to kiss her bare feet. Such a feeling can even help the walls of the temple, burdened with sins. There too is the market and the people. Among them are individuals, book characters from life, wandering and creating the face of the city (even now) like characters from Rezo Gabriadze”s works. Here, madness was perceived as poetic insanity, its metaphorical manifestation, and perhaps even now we should trust this experience. The truth known to Leli (Levan) Japardize, Sandro Tsereteli, and Shalva Karmeli, the youngest members of the Order, becomes clear when we read Shota Nishnianidze’s “Monologue of a Mad Poet” and the phrase “What is a poet? – A God standing upside down” is compared to each of them, to their character or creativity. And Rajden Gwenetadze was not mistaken either, choosing the title of his poem “Poets, to the Barricades!” thus expressing the desires, aspirations, and attitude of the “Blue Horns” to their duty. Responsibility is still a vague word, but it best describes their “mission” in this context. Sir John Percy, Arthur Rimbaud, Gerard de Nerval, René Char, Paul Verlaine, and all French poets of this period, the names of these “boys” (I allow myself to call them so, especially when they forever remained boys) may disappear, we might not even have time to look back. They can disappear only because they had a short life. After all, they futilely fought with “the bacilli of consumption hovering in the air.” Yet Leli Japardize, every time he had the opportunity, looked at the landscapes of Imereti from the “train” and then wrote:

“Ding-dong-dang, dang, re-ze-dang! …

 So what am I complaining about: my marquise

 I left him today there, on the other side.

 Rioni,

 Swiri,

 Ajameti,

Oh!! Daisy!!! Did this city turn my soul into a daisy?

The fiery flower has not yet cooled in the blazing heart.” (literal translation)

While “Kutaisi restless drowns in the wind” (Shalva Karmeli), the city’s muse wanders through strange places, observing strange faces. Metaphors and symbols are what poets love (I can justify the desire to write about what gives us pleasure, to write with a sense of absolute beauty, and to let the reader know about it). We cannot speak otherwise about poetry. Even though there are many grateful people in this literary city, those whom this city has accepted and sheltered, there are also those who did not have the chance to spend as much time here as the younger members of the Order but left behind something that preserves Kutaisi’s name as a city of poetry. The goal is clear again, it is never superfluous to remember the “Blue Horns” mentioned at the beginning of the article, but now we must look at the present so that the commonly accepted opinion that books are “valued” after poets’ deaths does not turn into a bitter truth. It’s hard when poets walk through this city without a mask, usually dressed in civilian clothes, living routine lives, and so indistinguishable and out of sight that we later regret not noticing them, not recognizing and listening to their poetry. Nika Kveselava was a contemporary of Leli and Sandro Tsereteli. His poems can help us understand what pain is and what pleasure comes with this pain. Then comes Bohemia. Here, no poets live without bohemia, perhaps there is neither time nor suitable circumstances for it, but internal, emotional vision, and inclinations are part of them, no matter how exaggerated and overstated it may seem to the reader. No, they do not live here like Henry Miller, and not like the Beatniks… Poets here did not have the fate of William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and Jack Kerouac, and maybe not Bukowski, but they created and still create art for all of us. That is, “we find, lose, or, conversely, lose, find” ( Nika Kveselava) what is called life and what all Paolos, all Titians, and all Valerian Gaprindashvilis wrote about in the “Kutaisi Triolets.”

“Maybe the night tried on a thought(s), my face is like that of a consumptive” (Nika Kveselava). Such is the fate of these poets, no matter how we try to change something, consumption comes to everyone, sooner or later, but they still manage to leave something important. As Terenti Graneli wrote: “My surname, Graneli, will remain in poetry.” They succeeded.

In this city without poet friends, and interesting faces even the “Blue Horns” could not survive, and it will be difficult for everyone else… Papuna Giorgadze – also a poet from Kutaisi with loud poetry, where protest is vividly expressed in many forms and themes. His life is most connected with this city. “In my childhood, I remember how every evening in our neighborhood an old woman came with a market bag and sold sunflower seeds.” (Papuna Giorgadze – “Maria”) (literal translation). This memory comes alive so vividly that we can clearly imagine Maria selling sunflower seeds. Or the line: “I also know that you should write poems about Maria.”

Poets here love with a strange love, express madness, protest, the importance of home, routine, “To place one’s mortal body somewhere, to become the guardian of the future” (Papuna Giorgadze).

If we are looking for poetic aesthetics, even in this case, we do not have to go far. Along with Denis Duhamel, Emily Dickinson, and Gertrude Stein, there are women poets whose authorship is unknown to many. Still, we can clearly imagine Elena Bakradze-Dariani as an “accomplice” (a muse, so to speak) of the poems of the “Blue Horns,” especially Paolo Iashvili. “Ellie” is also part of this aesthetic. In the “Dariani” cycle there are also enough intense passions and feelings, not to mention the erotic feelings of Duhamel. Provocative poetry is a form of narration that conveys female passions. How else can we perceive what Paolo read at literary evenings in Kutaisi, and then in Tbilisi, at the “Kimérion” café:

 “I kiss my own white hands,

 my burnt body

That you loved…”

The common, unifying feeling that people living in this world can have is reflected in poetry. That is why everyone in this city is under this influence, which cannot be overcome by fire, sword, or any other force. You do not have to fight. You must strive to see the beauty. As in the poem by Grigol Abashidze: “Her coming is like the sunrise, and she is forgiven everything” (“Ode to Freedom”), poetry carries this function as well. Searching for other reasons or opinions will seem even more comical when reading François Villon’s “Small Testament,” you understand the words “Long ago said the wise Vegetius, and if he had not said it, someone else would have.” Someone in this city will always say something that the wise Vegetius missed.

“Laugh at me, dear, So that I go crazy.

 Since I can’t be a poet” – Nika Kveselava

“ARS POETICA,” that is, the art of poetry, completely devoid of artificiality. … and everyone will do so, both old and new, and those who have not yet appeared:

“We overcame, were devoted, we understood, we managed,

We sprinkled with rain the suns…” (Nika Kveselava).

And you know what? The love for poetry in this city is still like the deacon of the temple who dreams of kissing the bare feet of the Virgin Mary during the service…