Текст книги "Endless Poker"

Tanya Verver
Endless Poker

© Verver T.

© Cover page and photos by Tanya Verver

Foreword

Contemporary poetry is a very strange thing. On the one hand, poetry is the oldest of the arts, kinds of literature, and types of verbal creativity. On the other hand, poetry is a social phenomenon that is constantly and incessantly busy reinventing its foundations. In this endless change lies the kinship between contemporary poetry and contemporary art. These two phenomena seem to be fighting for a place in the hierarchy of arts, but in fact they are engaged in about the same thing: the production of freedom and the production of new meanings of the word freedom. The most interesting contemporary poets create incredible works, invent and reinvent the concept of freedom, and have clearly formulated concepts of their poetic practice.

Tanya Verver is a contemporary poet with international recognition and publications in international online magazines. Tanya’s poetry can be described as laconic, sensual, melancholic, highly intellectual, and full of riddles and paradoxes. Tanya works primarily in a small poetic form and extremely masterfully balances between the subtle description of the emotions of the lyrical hero (annoyance, light sadness, despair, hope) and the intense fitting of her intimate poetic world into various environments (temporal, spatial, contextual) and metaworlds (the components of the traditional versification are whimsically reworked and are not equal to their counterparts from the traditional poetry). Of course, the roots of the poetic language of Verver lie in the European poetry of the XX century (subtle references to Auden and Aragon), but it is difficult to call her the heir, guardian, or denier of traditional poetry. Her ancestral connection with traditional poetry, is more complex and ambiguous, as is her connection with non-traditional poetry. In her rhyme among others you can sense a subtly sensitive connection to Keats. In her practice, Tanya overcomes the dichotomy of traditional and non-traditional poetry, makes it imaginary, and shows us a stunning example of a unique poetic position. This elusive positioning allows Tanya to use both tradition and the avantgarde as bags with sets of poetic instruments necessary for her, but in such a way that they do not have power over her. Tanya’s poetic speech, with obvious compositional restraint, is incredibly rich; she uses the widest range of linguistic possibilities, and her metaphors are completely unpredictable.

The most illustrative example of Tanya Verver’s poetry is the poem “Endless Poker”. This poem, despite its apparent simplicity and external asceticism, is arranged in an extremely complex way. It works at the level of direct meaning, sound recording, and alliteration; at the level of immersion in the European literary tradition; and at the level of visual art. It is in this poem that Verver’s method is clearly outlined. This is a method of collecting the world from heterogeneous parts, intonations, and the irrevocable past. The image of endless poker opens before us a wide plateau of experiencing the futility of human existence – the futility of repairing fundamentally irreparable things, overcoming the despair similar to the one described in “The CrackUp” by F. Scott Fitzgerald and finding freedom under complex restraints. This is an incredibly subtle and catchy poem that describes in detail the image of freedom to recognise one’s own scenic character. This is a bold statement and the masterful work of a professional poet.

Jenya Stashkov, United Kingdom

20.06.2023

Elasticity of Demand

 
Still asking for demand?
My verse is not for sale.
Just to repeat the mant —
Ra of the constant fail,
And mending broken wings,
And fighting back again
To catch the fragile things
Of colours that you may
Not see so with your eyes,
And find the deeper truth
Each side of paradise
In this lost age of blues.
 

«Silly story of your life…»

 
Silly story of your life,
You will never fire your rifle.
The target that still moves
Learns to make her own rules
I have never been for you
But you cannot make me mute
Learn to cut your own veins
Live without old roués
And survive the fading world
Be the one who had it sold.
 

«Life does not feel sore…»

 
Life does not feel sore,
Not too far away
From the golden ore
I will find the way
To another world,
Where I survive
Without the cold
Of your hidden smile.
Touch me from inside,
Tore me into rags —
To the riches of
Never ending lags
Between our lives
Hidden from the eyes
In the old archives
Burnt in paradise.
 

Edge

 
Tell another fairy tale,
Ask me if I am insane,
Play the game with me that you are still in love.
I will tell another lie,
Sing a scary lullaby
Only hope that you’ll die for me once more
 
 
You are my favorite toy,
And I hope you’ll enjoy
Always living on the edge of death and life.
We will go straight through hell,
Dive beyond the diving bell,
Where only the insane will choose to dive.
 

«I am bleeding with my verse…»

 
I am bleeding with my verse
From the fountain in my heart
Which has not been any worse
Since we were so apart,
I am still still with my eyes
Crying no tears at
The gate straight to paradise,
Where you’re forever dead.
I am waking you in vain
With my funny childish voice,
Poison goes through your vein
In revenge of your dead toys
Which are scattered through the globe,
Lost between different lives
And collected in the Globe,
If you look through the archives.
 

«The narcotic of your fame…»

 
The narcotic of your fame
With the new dose of my love
In its ever burning flame
That is breaking you in half
Will forever make you still
Make you suffer and rejoice
In your never ending will
That reminded me of Joyce,
Still Ulysses in your tale
Will live through another life,
You have often learned to fail
But you never left the strife.
All the commas lost in vain
In between my fading rhymes
In the liquid fire rain
Falling from your luscious eyes.
 

«Tainted glory, love to wait…»