Valzhyna Mort
Photo by Tanya Kapitonava
Bio
Valzhyna Mort is the author of poetry collections Factory of Tears and Collected Body. Her work has appeared in Poetry, Poetry Review, Poetry International, Prairie Schooner, Gulf Coast, Best American Poetry, and many more publications. With Ilya Kaminsky and Katie Farris, Mort co-edited Gossip and Metaphysics: Russian Modernist Poems and Prose. She has received fellowships from the Lannan Foundation, the Amy Clampitt Foundation, and the Civitella Raineri Foundation. She is a recipient of the Bess Hokins Prize from Poetry and Germany’s Burda Prize for Eastern European authors. Born in Minsk, Belarus, Mort teaches at Cornell University and writes in English and Belarusian. She translates between English, Belarusian, Russian, Ukrainian, and Polish. Valzhyna Mort’s new book, Music for the Dead and Resurrected, is forthcoming in November 2020.
Project Description
To support the translation from the Russian of Air Raid and Other Poems by Polina Barskova. The author of 12 poetry collections and a volume of short stories, Barskova was born in 1976 in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), a city that was under siege for three years during World War II. Based on unique archival research, the poems in Air Raid give voice to the historical trauma many experienced during the Leningrad Blockade. The title poem, "Air Raid," is written in response to personal letters between members of a torn-apart family and examines the trauma of repression and the loss of family connections. The collection has not yet reached an American audience.
As a poet and citizen, I’m committed to the art of language in resistance to power. The exploration of such language brought Polina Barskova to Air Raid and me to her. What does the support of the NEA, with its international prestige, mean to two immigrants, two female poets who explore remembrance, loss of historical memory, and forgiveness in the time of great political pressure? Air Raid is filled with the voices of poets who did not write to be published, who had no generous grants available to them. Continuing the radical experimentation of the most known group of the Leningrad avant-garde, OBERIU, all the members of which “were disappeared” by 1941, Barkova seeks to find language adequate for the suffering that defies language. As a translator, I am focused on carrying over Barskova’s broken intonation meant to disturb the reader, to cause discomfort to anybody looking for a consolation of quick lyricism. In our moment of utmost linguistic primitivism, I turn to translation and seek a radically free poetic language between the languages. I’m honored and grateful to receive the support of the NEA for this timely book, and to work knowing that such an outstanding institution recognizes the urgency of poetry in translation.