Description

Translated by Valzhyna Mort (Ugly Duckling Presse, paperback)

Publication Date: October 1, 2021

Publisher Marketing:The Siege of Leningrad began in 1941 and lasted 872 days, resulting in the most destructive blockade in history. Already shaken by Stalins purges of the 30s, Leningrad withstood the siege at a great human cost.Air Raidtakes us through the archives of memory and literature in this city of death. Polina Barskovas polyphonic poems stretch the boundaries of poetic formthis is what were left with after poetrys failure to save nations and people: post-death, post-Holocaust, post-Siege, post-revolution; post-marriage and post-literature. How does language react to such a catastrophe? How does a poet find language for what cannot be told? This new translation of a leading contemporary Russian poet confronts English excavating its muteness, stutter, and curse.