Leonid Schwab is a Russian poet who has been published in many magazines. Despite the fact that his life was extremely successful, his work seemed to recede into the background and was forgotten.
The biography of the poet
The poet was born on November 24, 1961 in Belarus, in the city of Bobruisk.
After graduating from the Moscow Machine Tool Institute, Leonid Schwab in 1990 decided to return to the homeland of his ancestors - to Israel. And to this day, the poet lives in the capital, in Jerusalem.
Returning to the homeland greatly influenced the poet's work. In his poems, he does not impose preferences on the culture in which he has lived for many years. But those principles that hold throughout the life of the poet can be seen in his work. This gives a special "highlight" to his poems.
The beginning of the poet’s creative career
Speaking about himself, the author notes that the gypsies whom he saw as a boy helped him make just such a choice in the profession. According to the poet, the day when this happened was gloomy and gray, and when he saw a bright company of gypsies, he immediately noticed the one who changed his life perception. The gypsy was dressed in a suit with a gold tie, which "sparkled right into the sky." Schwab himself notes that the gypsy, most likely, had nothing to do with literature, but his appearance and manner of behavior forced the still very young Leonid to choose his life path.
The first steps to fame were the publication of articles in the journal "Solar Plexus". Schwab has been published in many magazines; his articles have earned the approval of editors and readers.
Another important step, which predetermined the appointment of the poet in literary circles, was an article published on the pages of the journal “Colon”. After the publication of his article, he was asked to write an article in another no less well-known magazine - Critical Mass. After the articles published in the magazines Colon and Critical Mass brought fame to the poet, L. Schwab began to receive various awards for his work. His efforts in the literary field were well deserved.
Leonid Schwab: verses of the first collection
Publishing house "New Literary Review" decided to help a novice writer and poet, and already in 2004 the first book of Schwab - "Believe in Botany" was published. A collection of poems is a lot of small poems, each line of which is filled with deep meaning. The sadness contained in the words makes you think about the meaning of some things that the author writes about. It touches on truly important elements of human life that cannot be overlooked in one's life path.
The author himself says the following about his collection: "I am interested in a small life, it has less ambition and pathos, which means less falsehood." As an example, the author cites street photography, talking about how a meaningless picture suddenly turns into a whole planet on which its own physical and ethical laws exist.
Leonid Schwab: second collection of poems
In 2008, Schwab took part in the writing of the collection "All at once." His colleagues in writing this work were Arseny Rovinsky and Fedor Swarovsky. The book "All at once" consists of small poems, which in their semantic structure are somewhat ridiculous, but touch upon very important problems. Despite the fact that the poems are notable for their lightness, it seems as if the authors perfectly understood the gravity of what they are writing about.
Worthy collection "Your Nikolai"
The book "Your Nikolai", which was published in 2015, is also a collection of poems. Since the book received a prize, it was after the publication of this collection that we can confidently say that Leonid Schwab is a poet. This verse collection contains many poems that affect the most painful places of man. Each line about human everyday life hides a small tragedy, which the author was able to clearly identify, hiding the meaning in such a way that every reader thinks about the words he reads.
It is worth noting the fact that the poet himself is extremely philosophical about his latest collection. Since all the poems are dated, Leonid says that he began to notice a strange feature of the time: the written text is tightly tied to his watch. The poet believes that it is important to know at least the approximate time of creation of what was written or spoken, because all people know too little about time, and remembering all events is impossible.
Literary achievements of Leonid Schwab
Thanks to his articles, the publication of which was previously planned, the poet managed to enter the short list of likely candidates for the Andrei Bely Prize, which is considered the oldest Russian independent literary award. If Leonid Schwab got on the list of candidates back in 2004, he managed to get this award only in 2016. Schwab was awarded in the category "Poetry" for his collection of poems "Your Nikolai", which was published in 2015 by the publishing house "New Literary Review".
A few words about the poet's work
All poems written by Leonid Schwab are really worth reading. The uniqueness of these verses is that the poet does not throw empty words into the wind, but writes about those things that are invariably present in our lives.
Despite the fact that the poet’s life was very successful, the poems are filled with such disappointment in life that it seems strange how a person manages to see such sad things in modern life under such well-established circumstances.