The Country Where Everyone's Name Is Fear: Selected Poems

by Boris Khersonsky, Luidmila Khersonsky, Katie Farris (Editor), Ilya Kaminsky (Editor)

Overview

Boris Khersonsky and Ludmila Khersonsky write poetry that speaks to the crisis of our time, when refugees run from bombardments, nonstop propaganda flows from TV, and neighbors begin to hate their neighbors. The setting is Ukraine at the start of the twenty-first century, but it is eerily recognizable anywhere.

These brief lyric poems speak about the memory of historical trauma and witness stark individual voices that pierce the wall of complacency. What is the music of such times? What is its metaphysics? This collection gives us an unflinching, memorable response.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781736432358
Publisher:	Lost Horse Press
Publication date:	04/26/2022
Pages:	120
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Boris Khersonsky is one of Ukraine's most prominent Russian-language poets. In Soviet times, he was a part of the Samizdat movement, which disseminated alternative, nonconformist literature.

Ludmila Khersonsky is author of three collections of poetry and a professional translator. Her poetry has been honored with the Voloshin Prize and translated into several languages.

Katie Farris is author of Boysgirls and coeditor of Gossip and Metaphysics: Russian Modernist Poets. She is a recipient of the Chad Walsh Chapbook Prize and the Anne Halley Poetry Prize.

Ilya Kaminsky is author of Dancing in Odessa and Deaf Republic. He is a recipient of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Table of Contents

Introduction Ilya Kaminsky Katie Farris i

Lyudmyla Khersonsky

She dreamed of a humanitarian convoy 3

Buried in a human neck, a bullet 5

A country in the shape of a puddle 7

Language is like a tooth 9

In a country where everyone's name is fear 11

How to describe 12

Hide Under the Blanket and Pull It Over Your Head 13

Vote for Our Country Becoming a Wagon 17

Went out and stumbled over people 19

Apple 21

Keeping House 23

See the tail that wags the dog 25

Yes now she understands it all 27

One night, a humanitarian convoy arrived in her dreams 29

Look at her, she's lost her tongue 31

Boris Khersonsky

The nation welcomes the occupants with as they say bread and salt 35

Why sit like a guest but not wipe your feet 37

They printed in the medical history 39

Bessarabia, Galicia, 1913 - 1939 Pronouncements 41

Explosions Are the New Normal 47

Punishment 49

Against the backdrop of silent muses 50

Explosions are the new normal 53

I read with an accent 55

When victory is ours-postwar executions start 56

The earth is reflected twice 59

People carry explosives around the city 61

This morning's rain overpowers the dim morning light 63

Write me into the book of life 65