The aim of the study was to identify how certain lexical means of emotional saturation in Kyrgyz poetry influenced the emotional state of readers. The empirical part of the study was carried out between February and April 2025 at Gymnasium No 29 in Bishkek and the Faculty of Philology of Kyrgyz National University named after J Balasagyn, and included a survey of 122 respondents based on a lexico-semantic classification of emotionally marked vocabulary, relying on Robert Plutchik’s model of basic emotions. The survey results showed that 70% of respondents interpreted emotions mainly through the prism of personal experience, while 19% referred to academic interpretations. The emotion most frequently arising when reading poetic texts was sadness (51%), followed by inspiration (29%) and anxiety (13%). The lexemes жалгыз (lonely), түн (night), and көз (eye) evoked associations with loneliness, loss, and emotional instability. Women more often demonstrated empathetic perception (68%), while men exhibited anxiety or neutrality in 45% of cases. The application of Student’s t-test and Pearson’s χ²-test made it possible to establish statistically significant differences in emotional perception between age, gender, and educational subgroups (for example, t=2.18; p=0.041 in the reaction to the lexeme жалгыз (lonely)). The analysis of responses demonstrated a high variability of interpretations: the lexeme саамалы (breeze) was associated with a sense of calm in 66% of respondents, with anxiety in 9%, and with a neutral perception in 25%. The results confirmed the existence of stable models of personal projection and the significance of poetic text as a resource for emotional development and intergenerational communication. The study had applied value for the development of emotionally sensitive reading programmes and intercultural poetry analysis.