Tatyana Smolyarova's book "Visible lyrics. Derzhavin" is clearly wider than its name. The baroque nature of the studied poems corresponds to the baroque deployment of the text - in different directions and unexpected contexts, with the inclusion of distant figures and paradoxical plot branches in the orbit of the narrative. One hero of the book, of course, is the poet Derzhavin, while the other is the very nature of vision and observation, undergoing cultural metamorphosis.