Polina Barskova is a Russian poet. She was born in Leningrad. She started publishing her work at the age of nine, and her first book appeared when she was still a teenager, At the age of 20, she left Russia to pursue a PhD at UC Berkeley. She taught Russian literature at Hampshire College, and is now a professor at U.C. Berkeley. Her work has appeared in anthologies such as The Ecco Anthology of International Poetry, co-edited by Ilya Kaminsky. Kaminsky also translated a short volume of her poems This Lamentable City (Tupelo Press, 2010). She has done extensive archival work on the literature of the siege of Leningrad, resulting in the award-winning volume Written in the Dark: Five Poets in the Siege of Leningrad (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2016).