Yu. D. Levitansky thought a lot about his poetic talent, as evidenced by such poems as "Disturbing Retreat", "Second disturbing Retreat", "How many necessary words I didn't say", "Everything that exists is marked by time", "When there is discord in the soul", "I get rid of rhyme", " Bed and the table, and nothing else is needed", "My music, words", etc. In the poem "In the city where they sleep for a long time" Levitansky, relying on the imagery of Pasternak and Tsvetaeva, creates an expressive symbol of spiritual wakefulness: Utter darkness and living light - Lamp light or candle light - Poetry, that's your image - a window burning in the night. In the poem "An Attempt at Justification," the poet asks himself: "And yet what am I to do with my trade, / with my misery, with my sleepless torment! "(Here and further cit. by: Levitansky Yu. Sometime after me, Moscow, 1998). He tries to understand the process of verse creation, the nature of creativity. The poet calls his "craft" "cursed", but adds:: "I am responsible for the sinful soul of the verse." Levitansky does not take sides, does not talk about his chosen nature, about the divine nature of the poem. On the contrary, he is full of disturbing doubts: whether his poetry is needed. In the poem "The Second disturbing Retreat", he seems to be polemicizing with his inner self: page 27 And don't you think sometimes, that you're playing a child's game, you play biryulki during the plague, during a fire? That all these rhymes are a trifle, nonsense, bells on a jester's cap, boys running along the road, shouting funeral rows? But the poet convinces himself: "You have to go through this cycle / of doubt, disbelief, downcast hands..." In the poem "Disturbing retreat" Yu. Levitansky describes the most difficult state for a creative person: "I'm exhausted. It's over. That's it. Not a line." But this emptiness is temporary. The poet compares the return of inspiration to the spring arrival of cranes, the beginning of an ice drif ... Read more