Arsen Mirzaev

‘The poem should not be written but materialized’
This Kirill’s utterance, which is in many ways naïve and vulnerable to the face of dispassionate and usually irresponsive critics, to me explains a lot.

Despite the so-called crisis countless numbers of poetry books, miscellanies and anthologies are being issued. Sometimes those books may be good, but more often – diverse. Now, more than ever, lots of really competent poets have appeared who are capable of writing poems and who know HOW it should be done. There are plenty of unbelievably dull though decent books.

Kirill Burlutskiy does NOT know HOW to write poems. And in fact he doesn’t write them. He is trying to COME TO BE (yes, it is only an attempt, for one can truly come to be only beyond the bounds of this reality).

Of course, this is poetry. Rather serious poetry. But this is not truly LITERATURE (in a way we’re used to consuming it…). Behind the text we can clearly see its author who is trying not only to think HOW to write, but also how to LIVE (that is - write) as he feels he should - by the laws established by his own works.

No matter it is a bit naive. No matter its name is a bit pompous and not very clear – and that is Fumage.

Arsen Mirzaev
Poet, expert in literature,
Art-director of the literary salon ‘Old Vienna’,
Saint-Petersburg