"To be creative is to act in the name of freedom," Lamar said

In the school years, most of us, lovers of books, tried to write poems. Then poetry is still just an expression of the feelings that weave in our breasts. Most often we write, led by the sweetness and happiness of shared love, but sometimes also by sadness - because of a broken heart and a deceitful love. For a child, poetry means intimacy. As we grow, we gradually abandon our confessions on the white sheet, which, more habitually, we continue to call "poems." True poets become only those of us for whom writing poems is a manifestation not only of feelings but of original thoughts. When there is no deep meaning in one's speech, we have no real poet. On the other hand, poems loaded with thought and ideology cannot in themselves be claimed as poetry. And the poets rank them not according to their knowledge and intelligence, but depending on their artistic mastery.

Today we will meet you with one of the most talented Bulgarian poets, whose works are filled with a very serious conceptual design, and with a flamboyant and subduing feeling. His name is Lalo Marinov Ponchev, but everyone knows him as Lamar. Lamar is the first Bulgarian poet to ignore punctuation. His poems testify to the destructive tendencies and revolutionary impulses of the times. "I first began to break the word, the word order, and finally I destroyed the thinking." (Lamar)

His early poems, The Arena (1922) and The Iron Icons (1927), mark the turning point in the literary life of the country after World War I. Lamar is the closest follower and follower of Geo Milev among the poets. Together they carry out G. Milev's pledge to "boil over" Bulgarian literature. Although not as popular today as the great Geo, Lamar leaves a solid footprint in the history of our poetry.

For the poet Lamar, the poems are an inspiration (an expression of feeling) but also a weapon in the fight for freedom and a more just life. In the manifesto of his journal, Novis (published by his printing house), he reads: "To live creatively means to act in the name of freedom." "

Lalo Marinov Ponchev was born on 1 January 1898 in the village of Kaleytsa, Troyan. His family is not rich, and the future poet is accustomed to the hard work of rural labor. Lallo has three other brothers. They all sleep together in a room where they lie on a muddy floor and wrap themselves with a tattered mat. Despite his poor childhood and the first years of the village, the poet Lamar always looks and feels quite at his place in the capital, where he spends his entire creative career. Lamar graduated from the Trade High School in Svishtov, then enrolled to study law, but did not graduate. He worked as a Reserve Officer School and participated in World War I as an artillery lieutenant.

At that time the poets of the tradition - Ivan Vazov and Kiril Hristov - were affected. He began writing mock verses with patriotic content. The influence of Nikolay Liliev is also captured in them. With these works, Lamar still does not deserve to be called a "poet" - they are a consequence of the impulse of his youthful feelings. Lamar became a poet when, one day, his friend Nikolay Hrelkov decided to introduce him to Geo Milev. The acquaintance between Lamar and Geo Milev is a landmark moment for Bulgarian poetry after the First World War.

Lamar enters the society of people of art who have set themselves the goal of modernizing native art - Geo Milev, Hristo Yasenov, Nikolay Raynov… Lamar is far from the brilliant education of Geo Milev - this prodigy and erudite. But even among the great poets of Bulgaria he cannot be called a "peasant" by far. He is always remembered for being elegant: with a permanent white shirt, black bow tie or tie. Cheerful, friendly and talkative.

The poet manages to associate himself with art and to stop trembling for the intimate, after his father, betting on his possessions, supplies him with printing machines. Lamar dedicated himself to printmaking, which became his craft from 1925 to 1947. The printer poet lives in the capital and is friends with the enlightened intelligentsia. Lamar collaborates with Geo Milev's magazine Libra (1920 - 1922), Flame (1922 - 1923), Kormilo (1930) and more. His greatest creative success was with the poems "Arena" and "Iron Icons".

Let us mention a little more about the specific creative contributions of the great poet. After the Great War (1914-1918), the Old World (Europe) could no longer live older. Millennial empires are facing doom. National ideals are collapsing before the eyes of contemporaries. Bulgaria is experiencing a brutal national catastrophe. The end of illusions promises a new beginning. Home for a new Europe, a new world, a new aesthetic…

"I'll teach you a new aesthetic myself
of new laws manners and forms.
I'll teach you how to get used to it
with the ugly
with things that are baptized in power
and you will tread joyfully the roses
and you will absorb your lips sweetly into a prick. "(Lamar - Circus)

Lamar expresses the urges of his time. It thunders his youthful self-confidence. Criticism compares Lamar's verses to blasphemous spells. Lamar is distinguished for its "barbaric vitality and soaring sarcasticity."

"My cross is stoned
in Holy Communion;
my brother (the devil)
yelling at me with participation:
- Free! -
you are free! "(Crucifixion)

"The peasant and citizen, the cruel rebel and the careless Epicurean, the spontaneous primitivist and the radical experimenter with avant-garde art forms and methods argue with him."

What is the original of Lamar that values ​​his works and testifies to his important place in our literary life?

Lamar is not just a follower of Geo Milev. Its merit is not limited to the modernization of the native, by adapting to the "-isms" coming from outside - avant-gardism, imagination and futurism. And he achieves a mixture of foreign styles, masterfully combining them with the native, traditionally Bulgarian. This is especially evident in the following verses in his highly acclaimed poem, Peaceful and troubled years.

"In the sky, corporals are ringing
and the sun a fierce arsonist
- the level of heaven was torn apart
and the night fell like a backyard. "

Folk songwriting here is bound up with imagination. The sun "steam", ie. the plow with its plow its "heavenly levels" and the night falls "like a robe" - the language of the work is typical of the folk song, but not the metaphors and comparisons used in it. Lamar follows his credo, raising him to one of Bulgaria's iconic poets for the 20's of the XX century. "Great creators were the ones who influenced the native in the modern day." (Lamar)

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