Ананасы в шампанском

Igor Severyanin declared himself a "poet-genius" with the right to "use foul language as I please" and meant every word. This 1915 collection, which went through five editions in just three years, cemented his reputation as the most flamboyant voice of Russian Futurism. Here are pineapples in champagne, golden curls, velvet gowns, and the intoxication of being alive in a world ripe for the taking. Severyanin wrote poetry as pure sensory pleasure, shamelessly aristocratic in an age of revolutionary upheaval, celebrating beauty, luxury, and the self with a glee that still startles. These poems don't ask permission. They command. They revel. They refuse to apologize for wanting everything life offers. The collection captures a extraordinary historical moment on the eve of transformation, where one man declared poetry should be as dazzling and selfish as the empire it was about to lose. For readers who want art that grabs them by the collar and demands to be felt.