Literature

In brief: We are talking with poet and rapper of the younger generation Ernestas Noreika-Beeta, who has published his first poetry collection "The Lake of Peacocks" in 2012. The interview is about the states that arise from being in different cultural and everyday spaces and the stance of a modern man, who creates poetry.

I wondered if there was a difference between the poet Ernestas Noreika and rapper Beeta. According to Ernestas Noreika, "One writes poems another creates rap. Rap is no poetry and poetry is not rap. Unless you are rapping poems and read you rap song texts in some literary event. That is the difference. They both do similar, but at the same time different things and get along with each other without fighting. They both get enough thought drink, which is boiling in my head and which each of them doses differently.

When asked how he would define the poetry and rap communities, E. Noreika says, "I think that those who read my poems, probably do not listen to my rap and vice versa. But of course there are exceptions. It is probably normal, because some listen to music and some to poems. These are two separate communities of listeners that have different criteria, based on which they follow me as Noreika or as Beeta. Rap reaches more people, but only because it is music, because some listen without listening and people who come to listen to my poems are trying to listen carefully (I hope) because there is no other sound background except the letters I release and spread that stick into words and meanings.

Could the author say that bohemian writers still exist? E. Noreika wonders what bohemia is, "If it exists then certainly in a different form than it had before. Everyone drinks, everyone drank and will drink. But these days, somehow, not as much. Or as much, but everything looks ugly, because its "now." Is it really bohemian to talk about literature when you are drunk? If so, then it exists. Somewhere, at the same time, in a garage mechanics are finishing a fifth bottle of vodka and talk about the newly ordered parts of the engine, but that is not bohemian. Because not everything is bohemian just because there is alcohol. But if they also wrote good poems then maybe they would be bohemian. "Bohemia" is a one more nice-sounding pretty word that hides vomit, the run down mascara, intelligent or silly talks, bloated faces and liver cirrhosis. I do not notice its existence, so I think it does not exist. Sometimes we all drink too much, harness a white Pegasus and that is all. After that - beloved work and days of sobriety."