An Anthology of Contemporary Russian Women Poets

In one of this anthology's briefest poems, Olga Ivanova asks: ""Do I hold the past in my hands / Perhaps / A little too tightly?"" This question drives many of these poems crafted by Russian women over the past twenty years. In spare lyrics and prose poems, they question whether the past, albeit a cherished object, permits or destroys hope. In addressing this question, these poems often focus intensely on the present moment; Dina Gatina writes ""My eyes are / always directed / somewhat through / whatever I'm trying to examine."" Yet it is also through such keen observation that oneself and the devastations of recent history come into focus. An anecdote might stave off a darker reality as ""death covers up nakedness / with boy's flesh and puppy's head,"" making the past digestible, if not palatable. Mariya Galina testifies ""I shall pull the post-modern infection out by the roots,"" echoing Vitalina Tkhorzhevskaya's preference for a ""Direct speech of grief."" Often the bodies that people these poems invoke old cities, war and bloodshed: Berlin is ""a bloated face"" and ""your half-open mouth is cracked by a thirst / that can never be quenched."" Here is a group of poets so courageous and skilled in describing their common suffering-""there's no one on earth anymore, / and there isn't an earth, anyway, / anymore""-that readers witness their pain even as they are made to consider their own.