The author of the article proposes to introduce into active scientific circulation the theoretical and literary category of power, the effect of which he reveals following the poetry of Alexei Parshchikov (1954–2009). The research is based on the works on energy in a work of art by L. Vygotsky, A. Losev and other scientists. The author of the article considers power to be a special literarytheoretic category, correlating with energy as a particular and general. The power in a lyric work is a theoretical and literary category determining the relationship between the objects and phenomena and directing them to a metaphysical continuum, close to an incomprehensible absence. As a category, power permeates all levels of the work – subject-object, chronotopic, compositional, lexical, intonational-syntactic and others. As a vector quantity, it directs the lyrical plot, develops the motive field forward and upward, creating a painful metamorphosis for the subject / object, leading to silence as a blissful time-space. Form (tense or rarefied rhythm, change in the lyrical plot) and content (depiction of earthly existence), developing in opposite directions, neutralize each other. The presence of the verbal motive “power” is the dominant, and not a constant of the “work about power”, the word “power” can be replaced by contextual synonyms (“stream”, “abyss” etc.) or absent (“Hedgehog”, “Coal Elegy”).