The poetry collection Strophe includes 60 poems. The whole collection is divided according to style, mood and form into six cycles: Without Title, Summer Nights, Strophe, Old Fashion Vers Libres, Vers Libres of Dreams, Vers Libres with Rhymes. Each cycle or chapter consists of ten verses. Strophe allows us to discover Gaga Nakhutsrishvili’s real poetic voice: into his idealised poetic topics, he always manages to fuse some lightness and irony, to match content perfectly with the rhymes and accents and thus give his verses a unique characteristic. Short phrases, unexpected turns, a little sadness and a little irony create a very individual phantasmagoric reality.

’I would say that here the naiveties and complaints are somewhat excessive. There is a sort of sad simplicity in which the mood becomes grave, and then begins to show flashes of light. The author is not seeking anything extraordinary; quite the contrary, what we come across is something familiar. For that reason, personally, on reading this book, I have been crossing from the author’s rails onto my own rails and remembering things from my own life, then I have again been returning to the author’s rails…’   

Sh. Iatashvili, poet, literary critic

‘Gaga Nakhutsrishvili seems to me to be the last Romantic in our absolutely pragmatic world. And I think that today romanticism is especially significant. People are living their own lives, moving about, keeping busy; some are tired of it. Some are ill-tempered, some are angry. This isn’t poetic reality. But deep down inside this there is poetry. Simply, not everybody can see it. That is why poets exist.’   

R. Kartvelishvili, author

 

EXTRACT
Translated into English by David Gabunia and Maia Nakhutsrishvili 

WHITE FEVER

Ghosts leave the dwelling,
Rushing somewhere on black horses,
Someone moans of loneliness,
Grey days with white fever.

Doubts still poison our being,
Someone loses the bag of luck,
Plains are followed by plains,
No one is in sight, no one is in sight.

No mirage is in sight... even a mirage,
Even if you take a closer look,
The sky fall suddenly on the Earth
and the emptiness is left up there.

Ghosts leave the cell,
Escaping on black horses,
Bullets cannot help the Nagan,
And the only result is silence.

And only the fear of silence remains,
and with black, black, black horses,
Grey days leave us and rush,
Grey days on white horses.

THE EARTH UPSIDE DOWN

I don’t denounce or defy anything

And whom can I seduce with a word,

Where is the axis, give me the axis

To turn the Earth upside down. 

To not change anything,
I have already drunk what there was to drink,

To not fall in love with anyone,
To just look at the empty sky. 

I don’t disclose anything, nor judge,
I don’t want to defame anything,

I sit alone in my cozy house

And the cozy evening is settling outside.

I don’t empty or refill anything, 

And I’m not the first or the last,

Who was inventing foolish tales,

Who believed in magical birds. 

I don’t denounce or defy anything,

And do not wish to tempt myself, 

Where’s the axis gone, give me the axis,
To turn the Earth upside down.