Only You are Allowed is Zviad Ratiani’s sixth collection of poetry. He is a very bold poet in form and content, not afraid to experiment with well established Georgian poetic forms and, using traditional forms, always seeking his own new way of writing. It should be underlined that Zviad Ratiani is very familiar with English poetry and often applies poetic means that seem very interesting for fusing with Georgian language. He is a master of enjambement, he freely lets a sentence run over from one poetic line to the next, and thus emphasises certain words, phrases and expressions of speech. Often for Ratiani the main point is the whole image, what he wants to depict with his words and not the word itself and therefore his verses always give readers’ imagination an opportunity to reinterpret them. Zviad Ratiani is a poet who has always successfully written poetry that follows convention as well as free verse. Both bear his personal, sole and integrated signature. But this collection is entirely in free verse. It is remarkable that until now Zviad Ratiani has virtually ignored minimalist poetry: but for a few exceptions he has preferred to see and describe phenomena in a panoramic, large-scale way. This collection is no exception in this respect, but it also contains minimalist poetry, a truly surprising aspect for his work. It is true that the 1990s are the characteristic period for Ratiani’s work, but his output cannot be entirely consigned to the 1990s. It can be elsewhere. The poetry of the 1990s is rougher, harsher, somehow simple in its conception, whereas Zviad Ratiani’s poetry is more intimate, and sometimes softer and, above all, complex, distinguished by the wider horizon of his view.
‘In every poem by Zviad, one can find a melancholy, but a different sort of melancholy, which never tries to evade or escape. It is like standing at the seashore, observing a huge approaching wave, when you start to realise that there is no place to escape to, that the end is inevitable and the only thing you can do is just to stay and enjoy the beauty of your last seconds before this wave engulfs everything around.’
Sh. Gagarin, poet
‘Zviad always walked a tightrope, on the boundary of conventional and free verse. In the collection Only You are Allowed we finally see Zviad Ratiani freed. I can say without reservation that Zviad Ratiani has amazing talent to create a personalised intimate world around him and, naturally, he is one of the person to whom we can link the renewal of Georgian poetry, who has brought a new word; I feel that this book will be the start of something new.’
P. Shamugia, poet
EXTRACT
Translated into English by Timothy Ketcher
SHAVING
(to my own face in the mirror)
Don’ be afraid:
I’ll never recognize myself in you.
This drop of blood
Blossoming on lather
Will never bring us together—
Don’t be afraid.
Don’t be afraid:
I’ll never cross over your flat surface;
I’ll never peel you off the mirror glass;
I can’t even recall your features.
I’ll never allow myself to notice your imperfections
In fear that you’ll become confused each time
You match your smile with mine.
Don’t be afraid:
We won’t grow old together.
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