Categories: Essays
Elusive Yesterday
Essay-introduction to the collection of poems “The day comes” by Alexander Gofeld (Israel)
Each new book, especially the poetic one – it’s not just an upcoming dialogue with the future reader, it is primarily a monologue of the poet’s soul, addressed to himself, and not only to himself, it’s a cry into the infinite, into that great unknown, where there is a blissful, chosen by God silence, where all of us will have to live and find a new home. And the welcome excitement, encoded in our intuitions, in our loved ones, many of who are already there, stored in the written lines, in the lived minutes, in that elusive yesterday, that is so wanted to return, to taste as good delicious wine, and it penetrates into us, flows through our veins, and stirs our blood and haunts. And then the following lines appear: My friend has gone and life got tired, sincere, timeless for the vanity hurrying time, carrying the fate like straws, on the melting waters of being into our spring, which is always with the poet: How much light and joy in every moment of spring , with a romantic and passionate man, a little sad, but always true, open and vulnerable, like life itself: I want you to see me in dreams again, and this insecurity is winded with such an incorruptible force that you stuck dumb: the road of our life has laid along the hearts.
The author was brought up on the large Russian literature, its traditions. No, it’s not your fault that the autumn rains come in summer – no, it’s not your favorite for the poet Lermontov and Tyutchev, it is our poet, Alexander Gofeld, who knows so little about himself and so much of us, and we read him and learn to comprehend ourselves.
Once upon a time, more than thirty years ago, in his studio a great artist Boris Zhutovski (the same Bob Zhutovski as his friends called him, a member of the Moscow exhibition in 1962 in Manezh, which Khrushchev held), told me: “You know, a man – an artificial product .” Fitting the words of Zhutovski to Alexander Gofeldu, we can bravely say that he, at the highest level, is a real “artificial product” in the best sense of this word.
It’s always interesting to touch a great personality, and today, with the release of a new book of poems, we have such an opportunity, and I congratulate all with this good fortune. So let’s use this gift, reading a living book that is measured not by the number of pages and lines, but by the whole lived life.
Each new book, especially the poetic one – it’s not just an upcoming dialogue with the future reader, it is primarily a monologue of the poet’s soul, addressed to himself, and not only to himself, it’s a cry into the infinite, into that great unknown, where there is a blissful, chosen by God silence, where all of us will have to live and find a new home. And the welcome excitement, encoded in our intuitions, in our loved ones, many of who are already there, stored in the written lines, in the lived minutes, in that elusive yesterday, that is so wanted to return, to taste as good delicious wine, and it penetrates into us, flows through our veins, and stirs our blood and haunts. And then the following lines appear: My friend has gone and life got tired, sincere, timeless for the vanity hurrying time, carrying the fate like straws, on the melting waters of being into our spring, which is always with the poet: How much light and joy in every moment of spring , with a romantic and passionate man, a little sad, but always true, open and vulnerable, like life itself: I want you to see me in dreams again, and this insecurity is winded with such an incorruptible force that you stuck dumb: the road of our life has laid along the hearts.
The author was brought up on the large Russian literature, its traditions. No, it’s not your fault that the autumn rains come in summer – no, it’s not your favorite for the poet Lermontov and Tyutchev, it is our poet, Alexander Gofeld, who knows so little about himself and so much of us, and we read him and learn to comprehend ourselves.
Once upon a time, more than thirty years ago, in his studio a great artist Boris Zhutovski (the same Bob Zhutovski as his friends called him, a member of the Moscow exhibition in 1962 in Manezh, which Khrushchev held), told me: “You know, a man – an artificial product .” Fitting the words of Zhutovski to Alexander Gofeldu, we can bravely say that he, at the highest level, is a real “artificial product” in the best sense of this word.
It’s always interesting to touch a great personality, and today, with the release of a new book of poems, we have such an opportunity, and I congratulate all with this good fortune. So let’s use this gift, reading a living book that is measured not by the number of pages and lines, but by the whole lived life.
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