Well into his third decade as a poet Gari Light uses his mature voice in Confluences to translate multicultural images and locales… These English poems by Gari have the same energy and elegance as his Russian poems, and they are enriched by his multilayered, polyphonic use of the English language to express thoughts and feelings with sophistication and humor… These poems are like seascapes, or better yet dreamscapes, sweeping the reader into a swirl… So evocative is the poet’s language, so affecting are his deeply felt emotions, that the reader feels invited to take a piece of each place as a keepsake or talisman; so as to forget neither the beauty nor the horror of it all…Had Gari Light been born some three decades earlier, he would feel right at home in the literary tradition of the ’60s. It seems that the notions of his soul, as well as his moral stands, are much more in line with those times.
This isn’t self-help. It’s not a parody either. It’s something stranger and smarter: a satirical, uncategorizable book about belief, leadership, algorithmic power, and the performance of divinity in modern life.
A new book of poems by Nina Kossman. “When the mythological and personal meet, something transforms for this reader…” -Ilya Kaminsky
From the myths of the ancient Near East to the secluded palaces of forgotten empires, Harems: Origins and Eunuchs uncovers how the idea of the harem first emerged — not only as a symbol of power and beauty, but also as a reflection of human desire, faith, and control. With the precision of a historian and the sensitivity of a storyteller, Sergii Mazurkevych traces the hidden world of eunuchs, devotion, and intrigue that shaped entire civilizations. A thoughtful and visually rich journey into one of history’s most secret institutions.
This excellent anthology, compiled and edited by Julia Nemirovskaya, showcases poems by Russian (and Russian-speaking) poets who express their absolute rejection of Russia’s war against Ukraine.