A dispute about poems and beyond

Abstract

The article is written in response to I. Plekhanova’s study published in the same issue of Voprosy Literatury, which calls A. Dolgareva’s poetry an undoubtedly leading phenomenon of contemporary poetry. E. Pogorelaya also acknowledges key defining characteristics of Dolgareva’s output: preference for lively colloquial language, references to personal experience and the reader’s civic stance, reliance on plots and archetypical images and motifs, as well as a leaning towards the Soviet literary tradition and Soviet past as the last era of stability and relative normalcy. Polemizing with Plekhanova and other admirers of Dolgareva’s poetry, the author points out that the backbone of her poetics is drawn from 2010s’ Internet poetry, e. g., A. Kudryasheva’s works. The author argues that Dolgareva’s free and unrestricted, if not haphazard, treatment of the language is rooted in that background and that her works share a lot of similarities with those by authors from the Internet. Therefore, Pogorelaya suggests a more critical and reflective approach to Dolgareva’s oeuvre, stressing that it is primarily written with a specific reference group in mind and mirrors the group’s emotional charge.