About the poetry of Korotko – Author's website Alexander Korotko

Poetry, like any means of expression reaching the broad masses, checks the means of communication at its disposal and uses them, different from other means of verbal communication, in an image. The laws of poetry are complex, often they are disguised or inconvenient for communication use, and they are flexible and are looking for new ways of development. The poetic code is incomprehensible to the novice reader. To understand its essence, the reader must unravel this code using lexical and syntactic tools. Verbal complexity leads the reader into new, unknown places that are becoming more interesting as they progress in the reading process. The wide use of metaphors, sometimes not unambiguous, contains a very diverse content, through which the depths of thought open in all their complexity. The division of external reality into the components of the soul turns it into a secondary one and guides the reader to an internal powerful and attractive reality. All this is done through a language that conveys a lot of laconic means, it is based on an internal dominant reality that obscures objective reality.

Against this background, there is a recurring use of sources and motives. A rich stream, carrying with it hints of a famous plot, brings the reader to the childhood of the author – simple wooden houses, winter frosts, difficult living conditions, relatives that did not easily live, and a typical gloomy atmosphere. At the same time, we see an internal subjective analysis carried by the flow of consciousness, the connection of which with reality is complex and often overloaded. To understand all this, a second reading is necessary. To this is added, as it were, the occasional but constant use of ethnic Jewish sources, which the author keeps inside himself consciously and unconsciously, as he himself belongs to the Jewish people. The dominant feeling is an apocalyptic, slightly depressive drama that does not lead to the possibility of change, because everything is predetermined, nothing can be done, and, as it is said in the Ecclesiastes, – what was, will be. But suddenly the sense of sadness disappears, and the decision does not lead to despair. The Apocalypse dominates, but it does not strangle, it does not bend, it is only a fact, with which it is necessary to reconcile, because such is life.

Language serves the set goals, it is rich in metaphors, informing about what is happening inside, outside, in consciousness, and the components of this language are almost impossible to separate from each other. Complex, long sentences combine with each other layers of content, bind and merge, they create an exceptional experience, the wealth of which does not facilitate its disclosure and understanding, it requires a re-reading.

Poetry by Korotko received an international recognition. His poems are translated into many languages, plays are staged in the famous theaters of his native Ukraine and beyond, he is a respected member of the well-known writers’ associations.

Undoubtedly, reading poetry is an exceptional and exciting experience for a thoughtful reader. Bright novelty, complex, overlapping contexts, a combination of external and internal reality, conscious and subconscious wealth, the study of diverse content, all this makes Korotko one of the brightest poetic innovators of his time.

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