Vladimir Azarov Knihy

A lively collection populated by historical icons, each poem a story about the potency of imagination, territories, border-crossings of the mind – among them: the madness of a king who wants to be a swan, Michelangelo chiselling a heart that beats into his David, Tsar Peter with his three pet dwarfs acting as generals in the army, Vera Zasulich who became the world’s first woman terrorist, Robinson Crusoe hunting for the footprints of Friday, Michael Jackson pretending he is Marcel Marceau as he woos Marlene Dietrich in Paris…  From the Introduction:“A profound point becomes apparent as one explores Azarov’s juxtaposition of lovely bones: his is a classically trained mind just entered its eighth decade of life, still vibrantly trying to come to terms with that which we all ultimately face, the terrifying awareness of our own inescapable date with the black void of non-existence.”

Vladimir Azarov is an architect originally from Moscow. His other books include Graphics of Life, Black Square, My Bestiary, 26: Letters Poems Pictures, Of Life and Other Small Sacrifices, and The Kiss from Mary Pickford. Mr. Azarov lives in Toronto, and when he is not writing, he canoften be found in one of his two favourite places: The Art Gallery of Ontario or the TIFF Lightbox. As an architect, Mr. Azarov works for Moscow Architectural Bureau ARKHIMED-plus.

Vladimir Azarov was a child of the Soviet Kazakhstan steppes. When his mother discovered that he had a slight curvature of the spine, with her own loving humour she nicknamed him Richie, after Richard III, the 14th century English king, himself crooked, made famous as a monster by Shakespeare. At the same time Azarov suffered a vision-altering wound to his eye that transformed the way he perceived the world, both real and imagined. The wound eventually healed and, as he grew up feeling a wry kinship to the king, his bent eye became that of a visionary, of an artist who was a convention-breaking architect, and finally as a poet, not writing in Russian, but in the King's English. When, not long ago, the actual bones of Richard III were found under a parking lot in Leicester town, Azarov – now in his 80s living in Toronto, and remembering his kinship by name – envisioned the archeological dig and re-interment of the bones, and he became one in his mind with the reputation-renovated and redeemed king. He became, at last, Richie-Richard III, being sung to on a rainy day, over a new grave, by medieval knights.

Exploring the intersection of architecture and poetry, this collection pays homage to the influential figures who have shaped Vladamir Azarov's inner landscape. It delves into the passionate dynamics of Van Gogh and Gauguin in Arles, juxtaposed with the contrasting rhythms of modern Tokyo, where urban chaos meets serene spirituality. Through vivid imagery and emotional depth, the poems celebrate the elements that bind the world together, reflecting on the profound connections between artistic expression and the built environment.

With these three books (in one) Vladimir Azarov moves toward the completion of what has turned out to be a most extraordinary ten-book autobiography, and the recollections of a young man in Moscow during the tumultuous times after Joseph Stalin's death and the days under Nikita Khrushchev, known as The Thaw.