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This interview was first published in issue 21 of the Catoblepas journal in 2026. The video is available on YouTube and the Catoblepas Press Telegram channel.
Poet Evgeny Lebedev discusses his collection Mistakes of Youth, broken social mobility, the uselessness of poetry, his dislike of critics and readers, and the book as a black hole capable of swallowing the entire literary industry.
Interview by Aleksandr Spiridonov Jr..
Aleksandr: Evgeny, how would you define the central theme of Mistakes of Youth? What prompted you to address it?
Evgeny Lebedev: The theme was chosen entirely at random. Its central theme is the mistakes of youth. Seriously, though, it is a social statement about young people’s inability to achieve anything today. It is as if social mobility—not only in Russia, but throughout the world—no longer works. Young people are forced to make mistakes. These are not merely the mistakes of youth: it is as though youth itself becomes a mistake. That is what I wanted the collection to say.
Aleksandr: Which literary traditions or movements have had the greatest influence on your work?
Evgeny Lebedev: I think Argentine Post-Impressionism has influenced me most. Its authors preferred to remain anonymous, so they are not very well known. They signed their work with numbers. I am particularly fond of Argentine Poet No. 3. He wrote in a fascinating style—hexameter—about dead fish. Very compelling.
Aleksandr: How do you work with language and style? Do you use any particular techniques?
Evgeny Lebedev: Mostly, I walk. I walk a great deal and stumble upon stray lines in various things and phenomena: a smile, a heat gun, salt on the roads. Much of it is reworked. As Hofmannsthal said, the poet’s task is to connect disparate phenomena with an invisible thread. So I look for unobvious connections.
I have no particular poetic techniques. I generally put words together by chance. The more random, the better. A rusty nail, rye, rotten bread, rye flatbread—random things, but in a poem they acquire a special meaning, a special connection. Together they form the moment of creation. I do not think that was quite grammatical, but the point is clear. That too is a syntactic innovation—one that has taken place before your eyes.
Aleksandr: How do you feel about criticism and responses to your poetry?
Evgeny Lebedev: Negatively. Critics simply are not competent enough to judge my poems. I would say I am indifferent to them, but in fact I feel negatively: they presume to speak about something they do not understand. It would be like us trying to teach nuclear physicists how to do their jobs.
The poet’s lot in Russia is unenviable, but the poetry critic’s is worse still. The critic is a kind of bottom-feeder attached to the poet. They are probably not even worth mentioning.
I also feel extremely negatively about readers. I would prefer that no one read my poetry. That would be ideal. A reader supplements a work with meanings of their own, and I do not need that. First, it is my work. Second, what sort of readers can there be today? They inevitably ruin everything. I can actually feel my work getting worse when we put a book online. It upsets me terribly.
Aleksandr: How do you see poetry interacting with other art forms—for example, music or visual art?
Evgeny Lebedev: Evgeny Medvedev designed the collection: he created a font pairing, the cover, and the back cover specifically for it. I think the division into separate art forms is obsolete, so I have nothing to say on the subject. Evgeny Medvedev is, however, the most outstanding artist of our generation. Many thanks to him.
Aleksandr: Which poems in the collection do you consider most significant, and why?
Evgeny Lebedev: The third, the fifteenth, and the twentieth, I think—although I am not sure the collection contains that many poems. They are significant because I managed to bind different phenomena together most tightly in them, both formally and in terms of content.
Aleksandr: How do you intend to develop your literary ideas in future work?
Evgeny Lebedev: I do not. I hope this direction will not develop any further.
Aleksandr: What advice would you give young poets trying to find their voice and a place in literature?
Evgeny Lebedev: Do not write poetry. I do not think there is anything worse than being a poet. In the nineteenth century it still made some sense to talk about poetry. Today, I think it is better to become a heroin addict than a poet. So it is best to silence your voice. If that does not work, cut out your tongue. There are many ways to waste your life, but poetry is clearly not the best of them.
Aleksandr: Let us move on to the economics section—as if you were being interviewed by Forbes. How do you assess poetry’s commercial potential, and where does your collection fit into the picture?
Evgeny Lebedev: Negatively. There is no potential. Let us be serious: even some useless NFT coin has greater growth prospects because somebody might mention it. Trump Coins appeared, for example—anything can happen. There is simply no such possibility in poetry.
In that respect, my work fits the picture perfectly—as it does in terms of artistic value. Admittedly, the concepts of artistic value and commercial value are somewhat obsolete. The commercial component is negative: we probably spent more on the book than we earned. Not much more, but the money could have gone into something else. Expecting to profit from poetry is madness. I am bad at metaphors, like a true poet.
I wanted to find a historical analogy or allusion and thereby distract attention from my lack of education. It did not work, because I am an extremely uneducated person—as is every contemporary poet. An educated person would not, of course, engage in such a repulsive occupation.
Aleksandr: How do you plan to expand the audience and increase sales of the collection?
Evgeny Lebedev: As I have already said, I do not. I hope it will destroy itself. That is its purpose. I want the collection to become a kind of black hole that swallows every other collection, every young author, and this whole repulsive industry. Ideally, the entire Russian book trade.
Aleksandr: What financial or marketing difficulties did you encounter in publishing it?
Evgeny Lebedev: The marketing challenge was that we discouraged everyone from reading our book. It was difficult, but at least we ourselves succeeded: we did not read it. I think that is already a considerable achievement.
There were almost no financial difficulties. The paperwork was harder: poetry is quite strictly censored now. We had to write an ideological explanation for every poem before publishing it. That took time, but, as I have said, it was necessary. The financial outlay came to approximately the price of one cigarette—about twenty roubles.
Aleksandr: How do you use social media and digital platforms to promote your poetry?
Evgeny Lebedev: In only one way: if, God forbid, someone discovers that I have published a poetry collection, I persuade them not to read that collection—or any poetry at all. For me, social media is a propaganda machine against poetry. That is my purpose.
Aleksandr: What partnerships or collaborations are you considering for future projects?
Evgeny Lebedev: None. I think no better of my so-called colleagues than I do of critics. You do not talk to woodlice or other insects, do you? Some are larger, some smaller. In summer especially, the light in your room in Saint Petersburg attracts all manner of creatures that are difficult to identify. Perhaps they exist only in Saint Petersburg. It is the same with so-called poets. They are difficult to work with: like moths, they fly into the light and perish, publicly displaying their unresolved problems with talent. I am not inclined towards such behaviour.
Aleksandr: How do you assess the influence of an author’s personal brand on a book’s success in today’s market?
Evgeny Lebedev: A curious and very unexpected question. To be honest, I was not prepared for it. I assess the influence of a brand as I do the potential of poetry: it is irrelevant. Until you have an audience, you have no need of a brand.
I would like to attain such a position in society that no one mentions me. I think society will accomplish that by itself. This is a rare moment when I agree with it: here my personal benefit and the public good miraculously coincide. This is the only sense in which poetry has any meaning. It embodies a utopia in which the freedom of one becomes the freedom of all. A kind of communist utopia. Not for long, admittedly: morning comes, you look out of the window, and you cry.
Aleksandr: What goals are you setting for your literary career over the next five years? This is the last question artificial intelligence devised for us. Lord forgive us.
Evgeny Lebedev: I am setting no goals for the next five years. No one does that now. The question is slightly provocative, and I do not answer provocative questions. Please do not ask me any more of them.
Aleksandr: Agreed. I hope we will meet again and see another collection of your poems from our press—and more than one.
Evgeny Lebedev: I shall be delighted not to come again. But of course we will publish poetry. Ultimately, you never know what may happen, and waste paper can always come in handy.
Aleksandr: On that wonderful note, I suggest we conclude the interview.
Evgeny Lebedev: Good evening, and good luck!
The interview was recorded on 29 January 2025. The text was prepared from the video recording and edited for clarity and concision.