Irakli Kakabadze has published more than fifty short stories and essays in Georgian and English newspapers and magazines. His novel, Allegro or The Chronicle of One Year received the 1990 Best Literary Creation Award from the Georgian magazine Tsiskari. His play Candidate Jokola was controversial in Georgia, as it was about a love story between a Georgian presidential candidate and an Abkhaz woman. Writing simultaneously in Georgian and English, Irakli Kakabadze travels between activism in the Republic of Georgia and exile in the United States, continually refining his vision of pacifist poetics. With deep roots in the Futurists and the Beats, these bold, funny, and ardent poems dismantle language to shatter expectations and create a new world.

‘Kakabadze is rhyme-crazy and it shows. If he doesn’t find a word in English that he needs, he makes one up. If the rules of grammar or punctuation don’t suit his sonic needs, he breaks them. But there’s more going on here than just the urgency of expression bursting out through a second language. Kakabadze is creating cognitive and linguist dissonance to challenge bourgeois reality and ‘destroy the congeniality of the line’ in a rebellion against consumerism.’   

from the introduction by Bridget Meeds

EXTRACT

POSTINDUSTTIAL BOYS
 
Postindustrial boys,
Have a wonderful voice,
They read James Joyce
And make a careful choice!

Postindustrial boys,
Subscribe to ‘Village Voice’!
They play with colored toys,
And make an awful noise!

Postindustrial boys,
Have a wonderful voice,
They read James Joyce
And make a careful choice!

Postindustrial boys,
Subscribe to ‘Village Voice’!
They play with colored toys,
And make an awful noise!

I shall hit on you again,
Before Two Thousand Ten!
But tell me, tell me, tell me when,
Will I have some time by then?!

I should love you once again,
Once again to be your man!
Once again I’d love you tanned,
And will worship you in sand!


And I don’t want to be there,
Where the rules are not fair,
And Dow Jones average tells hypocrisy,
Of postindustrial mediocricy!

I should love you once again,
Before Two Thousand Ten,
I should be yours once again,
I wish, I’ll be alive by then!

My dear, I love you more than ever,
This passion lasts through death forever!
They tell me: be just cool and clever,
But that could never happen, never!

Postindustrial boys,
Subscribe to “Village Voice!
They buy those colored toys
, And make a careful choice!

In the desert of Arizona,
You don’t want to be a loner!
I would love you till my death,
Till my last and painful breath!


SCOTLAND YARD BALLAD  

Scotland Yard, Scotland Yard,
Listen to some Baudrillard,
And discard, and discard,
Power’s image from my heart!

Scotland Yard, Scotland Yard,
Listen to some Baudrillard,
And reward, and reward
Dominators with big fart!

Scotland Yard, Scotland Yard,
Listen to some Baudrillard,
And please let us play the card,
That won’t give power best regard!

Scotland Yard, Scotland Yard,
Listen to some Baudrillard,
Let us believe, it’s not so hard,
To love each other in your yard!

Scotland Yard, Scotland Yard,
Listen to some Baudrillard,
And let us have the lovely chart,
That would give us hope to start!

Scotland Yard, Scotland Yard,
Listen to some Baudrillard,
And be smart, and be smart
Don’t go chasing Jean Paul Sartre!


DECONSTRUCTION BLUES  

Main Street, Main Street
Needs some weed, needs some weed,
And also it needs to feed,
People who are pressed by greed!

Change ideas of mainstream,
And to have more decent dream,
And we need to, need to scream,
To challenge power hungry team!

Well to do élites, Defend some ugly deeds!
We need to plant good seed, In order not to bleed!
Christmas Eve, Christmas Eve
We are never gonna leave!

We are always gonna fight,
For the basic human right!
Would you like to see the Pope?
Would you like to buy some soap?
Would you like to have some hope?
Would you like to smoke some dope?!

You don’t want to be some shark,
You just want to make some mark,
You just want to go to park
, And make love to Mary Clark!

Main Street. Main Street,
Needs some weed, needs some weed,
And also it needs to feed,
Those, who are oppressed by greed!



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