Elmerülés a Sóvárgás cyberlírájában – Interjú Jelena Glazovával

Fotó: Oláh Gergely Máté

Jelena Glazova, lett költőnő Sóvárgás című verseskötete nemrégiben jelent meg a Prae Kiadó gondozásában. A kötetről EBBEN a cikkben írtam. A könyv bemutatója március 26-án zajlott a Kis Présházban a szerző részvételével. A bemutatóról ITT olvashatjátok Kruza Anna beszámolóját.  Ennek kapcsán a kiadó felkérésére interjút készíthettem a szerzővel e-mailes formában, angol nyelven. Az angol nyelvű változatot alább a blogon olvashatjátok. A magyar fordítást a PRAE.HU portál közölte le (a bejegyzés végén megtalálhatjátok a linket).

A szerzőről:

Jelena Glazova (1979) orosz származású lett költő, hang- és vizuális művész, Rigában él. A kortárs művészet interdiszciplináris és médiumközi területei érdeklik, műveiben szövegeket, képeket és experimentális hangokat kombinál. Sóvárgás című verseskötete eredetileg 2019-ben jelent meg Lettországban.

- You recently presented your new collection, GREED in Hungary. What do you think about Hungarian readers and the country? Did you enjoy your stay?

Yes, I really enjoyed my stay, I had warm welcome from Prae Publishing. From what I could judge, Hungarian readers are curious and have high demands, this is what I understood from the presentation evening, seeing audience’s reactions. I don’t have opinion on the country, because I stayed only for 2,5 days in Budapest, which is a beautiful city, I would like to return and explore it more.

- When did your artistic interests began? What made you experiment with multiple arts?

My artistic interests began when I was a child, as I had many gifts (I was drawing, singing and playing instruments, tried to write) it was difficult to choose 1 medium for expression, so I tried to do few things at once – hence, the interdisciplinarity.

- The blurb of GREED states that “She’s interested in interdisciplinary areas of contemporary art, combining  texts, images and experimental sounds in her works.” Where did the idea of mixing different elements in your works come from? Why did you choose poetry as the medium?

I guess I was influenced by my Latvian colleagues – text group Orbita, who mixed the media, I am also a big fan of Wagner (who is my favourite composer) and his idea of Gesamtkunstwerk. I started writing poems as a substitute to prose writing (I was sure that I have to wrote prose, as my favourite writers – Dostoyevsky, Sorokin), gradually I understood that poetry is my medium of expression. However, I am thinking about writing a first prose book. 

- What was the through line for your picks for GREED? Was there any guiding principle that shaped the order of the poems?

Fotó: Last.fm

In general this collection is shaped by relationship between individual and “power”, greed is also a greed for power, which individual craves. I guess the guiding principle was to start from individual/power topic and end with individual/art world axis.

- Not only do you always write the titles in lowercase letters, but also each title is the first line of the given poem. I found this quite enjoyable because it gave the text continuity and made reading easier. Why did you use this method? Is there a purpose behind it, or was it unintentional?

Sorry, this titles thing is a choice by translator, I saw it in already printed book, so I didn’t ask Orsolya Kis what was behind that choice. My poems are usually untitled. I guess this was the way translator solved organisation of text.

- Most poems have a definite melody, some of them could even be lyrics. An example is the poem поперёк кадра. Was any of them set to music or originally written as song lyrics?

I guess some poems from my 2^nd book were put on music by Latvian composer Platon Buravicky, but I never heard the result somehow (it was working material for contemporary opera we worked on, but never finished, hoping to revive someday). Otherwise – no, these texts were not written as song lyrics. Although, one friend asked me to provide him texts for post doom metal project, I sent him the texts, but he never came up with solution to use them.

- Your poems also have a strong visual impact. Do you picture your scenes to yourself as you write? Are any of these effects purposefully planned?

Yes, many people mention that my poetry has visual impact, I guess it comes from my wish to create strongly affecting image by the poem, so it is intentional.

- Several important themes appear in your works, but the three most important are perhaps gender, the position of artists and the place of arts in the world. Why the special interest? What message are you trying to send?

I was always interested in gender issues and feminism, I entered philosophy course to understand these issues better. And of course as an artist myself I am preoccupied with the issues of role and position of artist in the world, institutionalisation of the art world (which I try to criticize). I guess I tried to make accents on gender issues, art and artist’s position in the world to make people think about these issues.

Fotó: Jelena Glazova hivatalos oldala

- Religious concepts and theories are prevalent in your poems. These are recurring, but not especially pronounced. Where does the interest stem from? Why did you experiment with a combination of secular and religious elements in your works?

I guess it comes from my adolescent love of Nietzsche, I return to topic of god very often (some people asked me “why do you always write about god?”), although I am atheist, for me concept of god is existential justification, which could be any idea. I remember how one 1 friend of mine told me “who is god? Maybe I am god?” – I guess I just still try to answer that question in my texts.

- My favourite poem was мёртивая мэрилин. I found this the most expressive of the collection, beautiful and grotesque at the same time. Why do you like toying with opposite effects? Do you have plans to publish different styles of poetry in the future?

I guess I like poems to be ambivalent, to have as many meanings as possible, hence – beautiful and grotesque at the same time. This particular poem was inspired by painting by Marlene Dumas “Dead Marilyn”. At the moment I am working on 5^th collection of poems and it doesn’t look like the style is different – we’ll see in future how brave I will become in experimentation with styles.

A magyar változatot a PRAE.HU portal közölte le (Köszönöm a lehetőséget!). EZEN a linken olvashatjátok. 

 

 

 

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