As a child, Moscow aroused my delight and admiration – it is interesting, there are many wonderful things, there is a metro. For some reason, the smell from escalators and sleepers (it was then) was associated with a nursery rhyme: “As you know, the whole world begins with the Kremlin!” Years passed and my Moscow life began. Your job, your problems, your opportunities. Almost everything, “Tourism is different, immigration is different!” It’s like a sentence that ends with a sentence.
At first, the phrase “Moscow is a big village” seemed wrong to me. And indeed the visitor sits on the visitor and drives the visitor. No one knows how and where to go, not everyone is “native”. Wherever you go – give it a watch anywhere. And people rush here much more than in other cities.
Time passed and it became clear – there is another side to this medal, and the “big village” has its own charm. Of course, Moscow is not a city, but a country. Sometimes Yuri Mikhailovich Luzhkov, when he was the mayor of Moscow, would say, “Moscow is not Russia, and Russia is not Moscow.” In a big village there is more room for rivalry and less for envy: “If it worked there, in the far north-west of the city, then why don’t we try it too?! We’re not worse off in all this understanding.
One’s success in a large village is often seen as a chance for others. Moreover, this is freedom! One way or another, we fall into different hierarchical structures – but a large village can have many of them. He could be a humble bank teller, a fight club leader, or a prominent sports fisherman. What can you do? You cannot forbid living well.
“Small village” is a social concept, not a geographical one. “My hut is on the side, I don’t know anything”, “My own shirt is closer to the body”, “What do you need most?” Jealousy is free here – everyone knows everything about everyone. And if a cow dies, it will be the neighbors who will be happy about it. If someone moves the fence half a meter, passions are played out on a scale Shakespeare could never have imagined. It’s not fun living in a small village…
These thoughts came to me in connection with children’s poems. Probably everyone remembers the fairy tale about the sleeping princess. In this fairy tale, the evil fairy was not called, and then her wishes for the baby were always resolved. Fairies are different now. And one of my acquaintances brought a fairy, for what reasons it is difficult to say the gift of writing children’s poems. He goes to work – he composed a poem, he came home – he composed again:
On asphalt against the wall
Cracks are visible
We wondered all day yesterday –
Who is kidding here?
And today we saw:
Dandelion is growing.
Kids and their parents love it. Teach, tell in kindergartens and schools. And poems continue to be composed – what can you do? Yes, and its authors have nothing to complain about – he has published two dozen “adult” books, and his comments on current events can be regularly heard on the radio. But there is a lot of poetry – I prepared a children’s book and decided to publish it, and before that I tried to publish it in several newspapers and children’s magazines. Zero option.
“You have beautiful poems, send them to see… Then: “We won’t be able to print it. We don’t need them.”
Or: “The poems are beautiful, original, but not in the style we print”
Serious publications are cooler: “Yes, yes, thanks, I will give it to the senior editor – We looked, we got it – they went to the editor – Yes, we have your poems, I gave it to a literary consultant – We read it, we can’t print it”
Finally: “It’s good to have a writer of children’s poetry in our city. We will give them to kindergartens … – Kindergarten methodologists said that they will not work with your poems!
Three dozen poems about different types of dogs. Loop about punctuation. A book about seasons and months. And much, much more.
Local as well as regional and federal publications are unanimous in “not letting go” of the new author. When Vasily Shukshin in his youth received rejections from magazines that did not want to publish his stories, the wise critic advised him to “fan” them to various publications. Someone will print it. For Shukshin, this simple technique gave a result, for the author I mentioned – no.
What’s the problem? Yes, we actually have a “small village” in this area! It is necessary to print the classics, “our” or foreign translations. God is with them, with children, with parents, with educators, with teachers – it is important to defend your garden, not to let uninvited aliens get into it.
I admit that I began to admire Chukovsky, Marshak, Barto, Zakhoder more than before. Even Mayakovsky managed to explain to children what is good and what is bad. Or was the village not that small back then?
And apparently in other places the villages are small. I think now both Russia and all of us need inventions, new projects, innovations. The President says it is extremely important to overcome the backlog in the leading countries. But it wasn’t there. I’m dealing with a few inventors. And here everything is like clockwork. No money on New Year’s Eve. Finally they left. In the middle: “We’re considering your idea, we just need to prepare a few references and get a few endorsements.”
Of course, there are other options: “Of course we can. This is our profile. But you didn’t go into the plan, so we’re not going to do anything like that.
An interesting option: “The Tsar does good, but the kennel does not” – “Yes, the instructions were received, the money was allocated, but everything was framed incorrectly, I’m afraid we will not have time this year to redo it as it should be.
And again children’s poems.
why are you telling me
Are the bushes chirping?
because sparrows
They hid their tails in the bushes.
It seems that their village is small and hidden. Instead of flying, they chirp in the bushes.
Of course, this situation seems common. For example, Vincent van Gogh was unable to sell any of his paintings. We would not have seen his work without the support of his loved ones. I think Vincent would have fun if his Irises was resold to the Getty Museum for $109.4 million.
In the 1970s, mathematicians Ruelle and Takens wrote a paper that changed our understanding of chaos, and in many ways all modern natural science, and they decided to publish it. But they couldn’t. Hydrodynamicists believed that there was no particular analysis of fluid flow in the work, and mathematicians considered the result unimportant. They had to start their own diary.
But here, it seems, everything is simpler. About children’s poetry!
The wasp disappeared into the grass.
He has completely lost his way
And it can’t run through the grass
Buzz “ay-ay”!
Probably shouldn’t start a new magazine. Maybe we need to grow our village. There are many advantages in a big village!
The author expresses his personal opinion, which may not coincide with the editors’ position.