Khlebnikov is known as the founder of Russian Futurism.
He was well-educated in the subjects of science, mathematics, nature, folklore, mythology, literature, art, history and languages. All of these are influences in his poetry and therefore seen as complex by many literary reviewers.
A poet whose poems wonderfully portrayed Russian culture, with a force which impacted readers and the public. As Vladimir Mayakovsky said: “Khlebnikov is not a poet for the consumer, unlike other Russian poets, Khlebnikov is a poet for the manufacturer”. Today we might say, “Powerful but not necessarily user friendly”.
According to popular scholars- ‘Revolting against the mysticism of Symbolism, Khlebnikov was interested in coining new words and in developing a new “trans-sense language” (zaumnyi yazyk, or zaum), a language beyond sense that would facilitate the Futurists’ avowed intentions of scrapping the culture of the past, as expressed in their 1912 manifesto “A Slap in the Face of Public Taste”.’
Admittedly it is difficult to interpret his poetry and one needs dedicated time and a deep understanding of Russia of that era to truly interpret his poetry. I had to take the help of poem analysis from several online sources to understand his writing, and in particular the following poem.
Bo-beh-o-bi Sang The Lips
Bo-beh-o-bi, sang the lips,
Veh-eh-o-mi, sang the glances,
Pi-eh-eh-o, sang the brows,
Li-eh-eh-ey, sang the visage,
Gzi-gzi-gzeh-o, sang the chain.
Thus on a canvas of some correspondences
Beyond dimension lived the face.
The "non-sense" words are in fact a transliteration from the original Russian sounding words used by Khlebnikov. He invented a "language" known as Zaum of which this is an example.
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