Book 2021

Air Raid RU

Air Raid
Polina Barskova
Air Raid Air Raid
Information
Realm
Russian
Author
Polina Barskova
Title
Air Raid
Place of Publication
New York
Publisher
Ugly Duckling Presse
Date of Publication
2021
Material Type
Book
Format
Paperback
Number of Pages
160
OCLC Number
1269483317
ISBN
9781946433701
Language
English
Genre
Poetry
Translator
Valzhyna Mort
Polina Barskova. Air Raid. Translated by Valzhyna Mort. New York: Ugly Duckling Presse, 2021.
Description
The Siege of Leningrad began in 1941 and lasted 872 days, resulting in the most destructive blockade in history. Already shaken by Stalin’s purges of the ’30s, Leningrad withstood the siege at a great human cost. Air Raid takes us through the archives of memory and literature in this city of death. Polina Barskova’s polyphonic poems stretch the boundaries of poetic form—this is what we’re left with after poetry’s 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.
The Siege of Leningrad began in 1941 and lasted 872 days, resulting in the most destructive blockade in history. Already shaken by Stalin’s purges of the ’30s, Leningrad withstood the siege at a great human cost. Air Raid takes us through the archives of memory and literature in this city of death. Polina Barskova’s polyphonic poems stretch the boundaries of poetic form—this is what we’re left with after poetry’s 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.