Polina Barskova

Worldly belongings

Orchid Tierney

Reviews editor Orchid Tierney returns with capsule reviews of Bamboophobia by Ko Ko Thett, Air Raid by Polina Barskova, and Togetherness by Wo Chan. From the Ko Ko Thett review: “The collection includes thirteen poems Ko Ko Thett had written and translated himself from the Burmese, but arguably this is entirely a work of translation. The poet compellingly demonstrates the fuzziness of language to convey its atmospheric social and political nuances: ‘Come morning, we say, “Have you eaten?” to / celebrate the day, for we are still here.’”

May 23, 2022

Writing trauma in silence and stillness

A review of 'Written in the Dark: Five Poets in the Siege of Leningrad'

Sylvie Thode
This sign on a Leningrad blockade reads: “During air-raids this side of the street is more dangerous.” Photo by Ninaras, via Wikimedia Commons.

From September 1941 to January 1944, as Nazi forces brutally besieged the Russian city of Leningrad, five writers tried to make sense of the chaos swirling around them while they remained trapped in their own city. The works of these Russian writers — Gennady Gor, Dmitry Maksimov, Sergey Rudakov, Vladimir Sterligov, and Pavel Zaltsman — make up the collection Written in the Dark: Five Poets in the Siege of Leningrad. Written in the Dark is, in its simplest form, a work of siege poetry: it grapples with the questions that forced stagnation demands.

May 3, 2018
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