David Robakidze is a completely unpredictable poet. Anyone who reads the beginning of a poem by him will find it hard to imagine a desirable continuation. Sometimes Robakidze offers us such unexpected word combinations, ideas or metaphors, that the reader is bewildered at his first reading, but when he reads it a second or third time everything finds its right place. His comic metaphors are full of positive energy. After reading his compressed verses the experience of contact with a true element of humour remains. These poems show us that primary pure humour, devoid of any admixture of anecdotes, vulgarity, indecency, is as poetic as an other serious phenomena in human existence. The impression which Robakidze’s poetry makes has a resemblance to the impression made by Hans Arp’s equally pure humour. David Robakidze creates associative lines, which have long been tried and tested in the twentieth century. Such is ‘Sleep dragged down the fisherman and suddenly caught him sober’, or ‘An egg is a positive phenomenon’, or ‘A goose is swimming, it is a vice-swan.’ Such associative tendencies are extended into longer poems, as well. He has poems in which an extended metaphor merges into a display of wit, and he is invariably motivated by astute ideas. This really is a particular form of mastery. But it is a hidden, almost invisible mastery. The difference between him and every other poet of his generation is that he relies utterly on his own inner voice and, trusting it accordingly, follows its current. That is probably why he is out of tune with the familiar literary world and is most like his own self.

‘One critic has rightly notes that a homogenous “empty space”, which needs to be filled, has been formed in modern Georgian poetry. This “empty space” provides for the excessive excitement of today’s reality, its paradoxical diversity, its almost total phantasmagoria, and it demands the appropriate reaction from poetry. I don’t know if anyone would argue about the existence of this “empty space”, but one thing is clear: David Robakidze’s poetry confirms the paradoxical nature of our existence (specifically, of our everyday life) and gives the appropriate response to fill that “empty space”.’    

Andro Buachidze, poet, literary critic

‘The more powerful the metaphor, the more it finds what is common between utterly different, at first sight, and widely separated objects and phenomena. And if this profound metaphoric nature exists, what is the effect it should produce on aa reader, who focuses his eyes on the existing world and finds such unbelievable similarities? Anxiety, astonishment, the experience of contact with true reality? All that is really inevitable; in fact, these emotions basically dominate, but there are poets who arouse smiles or even laughter in the reader with their penetrating metaphorical way of seeing things. One such poet is David Robakidze.’    

Shota Iatashvili, writer, literary critic

EXTRACT
Translated into English by Tim Kercher  

WHAT IS 'A MAN'?

A man is:
when you sculpt a piggy bank of clay giving it the shape of a man,
notching a slot where a rib should be.
A man is:
when you sculpt a piggy bank of clay giving it the shape of a man
to bring to the market to sell.
A man is:
when you sculpt a piggy bank of clay giving it the shape of a man
to turn the heads of children carried in their parent’s arms.
A man is:
when you sculpt a piggy bank of clay giving it the shape of a man
to return home barely wrapped after failing to sell.
A man is:
when you sculpt a piggy bank of clay giving it the shape of a man
to bequeath to your children to break its belly when
coins reach the throat.
A man is:
when you sculpt a piggy bank of clay giving it the shape of a man
without being able to explain how.


WATERMELON  

In the Arctic Ocean
among a horde of fishing boats
among a horde of hunting boats
surrounded by polar bears and seals
is a Central-Asian watermelon
that is floating navel down, a cut on its side,
submerged.
Now and again the watermelon looks up
when the ocean’s pesky little creatures try to
get into its navel’s red glow.
Because this watermelon, with every ounce of its rind, seeds, and oval shape
is waiting for two hands—waiting for them to reach down from the
beautiful, lamb-shorn sky. It’s waiting
like days sealed in a cardboard box,
like eggs waiting for Christmas.


NEW YEAR’s TREES ARE FILLED WITH  

New Year’s trees are filled with
electricity each season
while common trees wait for Winter’s end
and its run-off waters.
In Spring, the buds light up and shine until
someone comes and picks the fruit.





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