[versale]

For those who reads Russian this is the best her verse as rated at [1].

  Утреннее солнце восходит утром –
  Столько соблазнительных вероятий!
  Что же ты, девка, ходишь по квартире,
  Тапками стуча, пятки печатая?

  Что тебе, голубка моя лебёдка?
  Поворотись-ка, сними последнее,
  В золотое зеркало полюбуйся,
  Это и то вперёд выдвигая.

  И чу! Я слышу глухое биенье.
  Тепло бокам и шея удлинилась.
  Ноги не радуют, но белым перьям
  Многие подруги позавидуют.

  Достаточно сделать движенье крылом –
  В животе ухает; паркет остался
  Далеко внизу; родные, простите,
  Пишите мне до востребования.

  – Бессмертная, навеки бессмертна я,
  Стиксу не быть для меня преградою!

[1] https://readrate.com/rus/news/luchshie-sovremennye-russkie-s...

[lovelyviking]

If she is the best living Russian poet and this is the best her verse, then the whole Russian poetry is in very poor quality. I find nothing fascinating here at all. Even rythm is broken but not in a good way. Just broken.

[versale]

I've never heard of Maria (though can't say I'm an expert in poetry). That's why I decided to do some research and found this.

Hm, I had to read the lines three times, slowly, to reconstruct the image the author tried to convey. And this was the first layer. Apparently there is another one inside, but I presume this second layer resembles a Rorschach test: everybody is welcome to see what ever she/he wants to see. That's quite an achievement for those who care about pumping up readers' self-esteem. Especially if the readers see poetry as gymnastics for brain.

[Koshkin]

A fitting Feynman quote:

A poet once said, 'The whole universe is in a glass of wine.' We will probably never know in what sense he meant it, for poets do not write to be understood.

[jfengel]

It's true. Poets don't write to be understood. They write to be felt.

A single sentence like that is rarely good poetry, and it doesn't make me feel all that much. But it wouldn't be any more interesting rewritten as "All of the laws of physics are expressed in a glass of wine just as much as in the rest of the universe", if that's what was "meant". It's just vapid.

But if it stuck in Feynman's mind, and yours, it means the poet was on to something. That's the important part. The poet said a thing and it connected, just as Feynman's nude drawings connected with him. They don't need to "mean" anything more than exactly what they are.

[dmitriid]

> And this was the first layer. Apparently there is another one inside

This is ascribing meaning to something that most likely doesn't have the ascribed meaning.

[nzmsv]

That's the whole point though: it's a puzzle for the brain. If it were explicitly spelled out the fun would be lost.

Personally I think of art as programming using symbols that have been previously uploaded into the audience. Incidentally, this is why sometimes it is easy for art to cross language and culture boundaries, and sometimes very hard: it just depends on whether the symbols are something universal for all humanity or specific to a particular culture.

In Russia in particular there is a common view that poetry should: - rhyme - have a flowing rhythm - be very literal/descriptive

and there is certainly a lot of good poetry like that. But sometimes artists break rules for fun. Stepanova to Pushkin is what Aphex Twin is to Mozart. Just have some fun with it and don't worry if it fits into preconceived notions of what is good poetry.

In the spirit of fun: have you noticed that there are two sets of sentence breaks in the poem, one on the line breaks and one at the punctuation? This actually changes word association and the imagery. Think this was an accident?

[dmitriid]

Having dissected probably hundreds of literary works in school, including "notice how the sentence breaks", I have very high tolerance against questions like "do you think it's a coincidence"? 25 years ago I could write a four-page essay on this poem alone without breaking a sweat (4 pages was a requirement to pass graduation exams).

So yes, this style actually could be a coincidence: anything from subconsciously or consciously emulating a style to just stumbling into this form to being a bad poet to having too much fun with punctuation to...

Also, in this particular case there are literally only two sentences that don't break at punctuation point, and I do think this is not entirely intentional. Call this a feeling :)

> In Russia in particular there is a common view that poetry should: - rhyme - have a flowing rhythm - be very literal/descriptive

This is definitely true. Free verse is a relatively rare beast. Here's an example from Alexander Blok [1]. And look, it also has break at both punctuation and in the middle of a sentence hmmmm ;)

[1] https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Свободный_стих#Примеры

[ordu]

It reminds me of English poetry. I never understood the point of it. Blamed by bad English skills for that. But this verse looks just like English poetry just in Russian. Russian text written in a way to make it difficult to read, to hide the fact that the author had nothing to say, but had said nonetheless.

Or, maybe, not "to hide"? If it is an attempt to hide, then it would be a failed attempt. Maybe she had some other goals in her mind when wrote this?

[FpUser]

Not all English poetry is like that. For example there is definitely music an rhythm in Longfellow's "The Song of Hiawatha" or William Blake's "The tiger" although I would dare to say that their versions translated to Russian are "better" sounding. This obviously could be just because of the English not being my native tongue.

[lovelyviking]

Thank you for mentioning something specific so we can try to read those.

[ordu]

> Longfellow's "The Song of Hiawatha" or William Blake's "The tiger"

Yeah, just checked them. Much better.

[mistrial9]

".. if this person shows that example, then all of X is broken" -> use of invalid or otherwise faulty reasoning in the construction of an argument.

[bendbro]

The argument is valid but not sound. The premises "best russian poet" and "best verse" taken from the parent are likely wrong.

[MichaelMoser123]

i am no expert in contemporary poetry, however on the TV station "дождь"/rain they used to read modern poems right before the evening news program, and these poems make much more sense. However I didn't find a collection of these poems.

[voqv]

I haven't read much modern Russian poetry, but this really isn't that good. There are way better contemporary examples.

[dmitriid]

In my late teens I had tons of poetry of similar quality [1] Why am I not the greatest living Russian poet? :)

[1] https://old.dmitriid.com/projects/literary.html See "Абстрактизация", or even "В огОроде" (or anything else :)) )

[selivanovp]

I have no clue who said that Stepanova is a greatest poet, especially since the quoted poetry is complete garbage.

[tclover]

hm... So according to who she is "one of greatest"? My second question is how is this hacker news relevant?

[mellosouls]

Apart from the guidelines wrt "intellectual curiosity" pointed to you elsewhere, perhaps you can grant her admission for discussion as:

She is the founder of Colta, the only independent crowd-funded source of information in Russia. The high-traffic online publication has been called a Russian Huffington Post in format and style, and has also been compared to The New York Review of Books for the scope and depth of its long essays.

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/mad-russia-hurt-me-into-...

The website is also mentioned in the OP article.

[lostmsu]

> the only independent crowd-funded source of information in Russia

How about Russian branch of Wikipedia?

[mellosouls]

I agree, it seems unlikely to be the only independent source. But the point is that on narrow technical/business criteria, she qualifies for HN, in addition to the guidelines supporting those of us with wider interests.

[Ralfp]

Hacker News Guidelines

What to Submit On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[cookieswumchorr]

when I went to school in Russia the great writers were those whos portraits we had on the wall in literature class. I'm sure she was not among them ))) I've tried reading her book "in memory of memories" got stuck, but not in an unpleasant way, maybe will give it a try later;

[wolverine876]

> the great writers were those whos portraits we had on the wall in literature class

It's completely up to the authorities to define great writers?

[cookieswumchorr]

this was meant ironically of course. What I wanted to say is: all those stars and badges are bullshit, just read what you like. I've hated books that were on various "best of all time" lists, and enjoyed unknown stuff from the internet with typos and broken grammar. And vice versa.

[wolverine876]

Sorry, I didn't know you were being ironic.

I'll add to your point that 'stars and badges' (from a source I trust) on something I don't like can be a signal that there is something more there, outside my understanding, and that's often the most fruitful thing to read.

[1cvmask]

As relevant as Eddie Murphy Coming to America perhaps.

[azangru]

> My second question is how is this hacker news relevant?

And the third question is, how is she on the front page? Are there that many readers of Hacker News who are interested in contemporary Russian poetry?

[Koshkin]

Russian hackers? :)

[FpUser]

I guess they ran out of usual set of subjects about evil Russia and had decided that little diversity masqueraded as an art related would not hurt.