Author's website Alexander Korotko

Andrew Sheppard, editor-in-chief of the British publication “East-West Review” spoke about Alexander Korotko’s poetry, which will be included in the author’s new book “Blackout”. Work on the assembly is almost complete.

The reasoning of Andrew Sheppard is published below:

“I’m very hesitant to accept your invitation to make myself a critic of Alexander’s poetry. Some of it works particularly well in English, some of it not so well – but that’s in English, and the way in which we read poetry is, in general, very different from the way in which the same poems are read in Russian.

Of the most recent Blackout poems, numbers 77, 80, 85 and 86 work the best in English – number 85 in particular. 85 is a poem of a genius. I loved it so much. What a great work!

In any case, I think that on the whole Alexander’s poems are best taken together as a group. Then we begin to see what his recurring interests and concerns are, and to spot, for instance, that he mentions abandoned pets in the destroyed towns in Blackout poems 55 and 86.

Judging purely on the basis of the English translations, I think it would be a pity to let poems 87 and 88 remain as the last in the book. Alexander moved a few poems around at the end of War Poems – I think possibly writing one or two more especially for the purpose of bringing the collection to the best possible conclusion. It would probably be a good idea to do the same in bringing Blackout to its close. Do you think 2 more poems are possible?”