Konstantin Voskresenskiy - My Favourite Poems in English

Compiled by the author from the forewords of his previous works.

As Joseph Brodsky said: «Poetry is not the best words in the best order. It is the highest form of the existence of language…»

And at this moment, real, deep verse lines are born! It is when you are worried about something, when your soul is torn apart… and so I opened the book of Konstantin Voskresenskiy… It's like drinking spring water!

Here there is curiosity, inquisitiveness, a thirst for knowledge, and attacks of negativity, the first feelings and the first disappointments.

Konstantin Voskresenskiy has the gift of igniting a fervent interest in the topic in which he is engaged, to make both himself and those involved in the process burn brightly. At the time of our nice acquaintance, it was only about editing a few of his works, which were included in the second book that was not be ready yet. But whether «COVID messed everything up», or something else, «The Tale of the Coronavirus» appeared, then a book of prose, then almost simultaneously two books of poems, and later two books of literary analysis one after the other. This is all thanks to Konstantin Dmitrievich's energy and enthusiasm.

This reading is food for the heart and mind, not just a means to achieve ambitious goals.

Konstantin Voskresenskiy is a man, first of all, distinguished by courage and character. But in order to succeed as a writer it is necessary (as is well known) to preserve in the soul the childish feeling of an explorer and discoverer. This dialectical point is not always recognised by everyone, including, as often happens, by the author himself. But in the lines of his literary works, and sometimes between the lines, this feeling is easily calculated and deducted as good humour or a diligent, emphatically restrained ironic attitude to reality.

The variety of topics and the way he approaches them is very characteristic of Konstantin's current mood. This can be said with confidence because the author is young; most of his life has taken place in the third millennium. He is open to the novelty of the era and is not heavily burdened with the established literary opinions and preferences. This poet is closer to individual and cultural freedom, which is imposed on us by the painful split of the renewing society.

The experience of working with Konstantin Voskresenskiy's poems can open up one's idle eye and ear to the wealth hidden beneath, which is full of the process of making modern poetry.

With a healthy amount of optimism, this poem tells us that the world's accessibility and knowledge increase with us as we develop and grow up. This is done in the form of a rhetorical question that each of us can ask ourselves. In this way, in this brilliant octave, Voskresenskiy expresses the beauty of modern knowledge.

Continuing the study of Voskresenskiy's poems, it is easy to come across moments of discoveries and failures that excite many writers, which negate or distort the artistic truth of word.

It remains to be hoped that the future fate of Konstantin Voskresenskiy as a writer will develop in such a way that this, in my opinion, successful experience, will only be emphasized by subsequent successes on his literary path.

Signature

Sergey Smetanin, Member of the Russian Writers' Union (Russian: Сергей Сметанин, Член Союза писателей России)

(individual quotes from books: «In Jest or Seriously», «The Dreamer», «Favourite Poems», «The Adventures of Kesha the Russian Boy», «Literary Analysis of Poems», «Literary Analysis of Poems II», «Debate on Literary Analysis of Poems»).

Vadim Bakulin, Member of the Russian Union of Writers (Russian: Вадим Бакулин, Член Российского союза писателей)

(individual quote from the book «In Your Name»)

This interpreted poem is for my first book in English «The Adventures of Kesha the Russian Boy». It's a story about my childhood and coming of age, written from autobiographical material. Episode «2020. COVID-19.»

From the first collection of poems «In Your Name» (Russian: Во имя твоё).