Polina Barskova
Author Profiles

About the Author:

Полина Барскова Polina Barskova
Polina Barskova
California, USA

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).

Bookshelf
100 pms war
by Julia Nemirovskaya, editor

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.

DesyatyjKrug
by David Gay

The documentary novel “The Tenth Circle” tells the story of the life, struggle, and destruction of the Minsk ghetto, one of the largest in the Soviet Union and Europe during World War II. (Russian edition)

1. Dislocation
by Julia Nemirovskaya and Anna Krushelnitskaya, editors

This collection focuses on the war between Russia and Ukraine as seen by Russophone poets from all over the world.

Videos
Play Video
EastWest Literary Forum Bilingual Poetry & Prose Reading. July 13, 2025.
Length: 2 hrs. 08 min