Notebook in a cage

This is the fourth book of verses by Alexei Ulyukaev, but not another. Rather, early, and even parole: written in conclusion, published immediately upon exit from the colony after six years, two-thirds of the term. Ulyukaev does not “build” the book, it retains the chronology of captivity. From the verse to the verse, from year to year, he goes a bitter and complex path, at the end of which there remains the conviction that in life “only love and freedom” are truly valuable. This is not a prison household at all. The poet looks “on top of the skin”, in his verses there are a lot of deep thoughts about the soul, about creativity, about the nature of good and evil. Pushkin, Dante, Tyutchev, Mandelstam can be considered his cellmates - so often he turns to them. Long before the release of this book, Alexei Ulyukaev said: “I like this definition: blues are when a good person is bad. And poetry is when a good person is very bad. ” Perhaps this is one of the main conditions for preserving the personality in any conditions, and especially in those that do not have this: to see themselves with a good person. Then a good book turns out - like this