Valzhyna mort biography examples

Valzhyna mort biography examples: Born in Minsk, Belarus (part

What was I doing? Anything I wanted to do. Anything that my Belarusian ear heard and wanted to hear, anything that felt right all through my body. What did I do then? I created my own English. Mort teaches at Cornell University and writes in English and Belarusian. Her translations are featured in many literary anthologies. Jennifer Lee Tsai is a poet, editor and critic.

She was born in Bebington and grew up in Liverpool. Her debut poetry pamphlet is Kismet ignition press, We ensconce ourselves in The White Review. Toggle navigation. Latest Reviews Features Fiction Poetry. Print Prizes Events Shop. Interview with Valzhyna Mort. Q The White Review — Can you tell me about your first memories of writing poetry, and why you write?

Poverty prevented me from judging that all was well in the world and in history, the sun taught me that history is not everything. In your work, the presence of fairytales is also strong, and there is a similar mixing of both religious and popular images which integrates the sacred and the everyday. My favourite fairytales are not didactic.

I grew up with filmstrips that my father projected onto a bedroom wall. There was a bronze palace, followed by a silver palace, followed by a gold palace. When a character needed to find an unknown location, he just set out, without either inquiry or self-questioning. I, on the other hand, was full of doubts and guilt. I felt a great pressure to become a good Soviet citizen at the time when the Soviet Union was already collapsing.

Stories of tortured hero-children were everywhere. Soviet kamikaze-children who blew themselves up in the face of their enemies, children who heroically withstood torture. Nobody ever told me that it was okay to take these stories with a grain of salt. The men I read talked in fairytales: Maurice Maeterlinck was my childhood obsession. All positions of power above my child-self were occupied by women: teachers, ticket controllers and the most archetypal Eastern European evil goddess, the cashier at the grocery.

My father never beat or even scolded me. The power of physical, verbal and mental abuse was feminine. But what does this mean? And what I write is a moist fog. And, after all those years together, her speech and her body are the most mysterious part of me, the one I know least.

Valzhyna mort biography examples: Valzhyna Mort is a

Could you tell me more about the figure of the early Renaissance poet Mikola Husowski, who looms large within the narrative? Husowski was born in what is today Belarus, allegedly the son of a local forester in the Bialowieza Forest — the last and largest part of a primeval forest that is home to this fantastic valzhyna mort biography examples, the heaviest European mammal, the Bialowieza bison a national symbol of Belarus].

I walked the Roman streets and talked to Husowski. Displacement presupposes a place of belonging left behind, a source of nostalgia. A misplaced person submits to the fact that she has no other country but herself. A Valzhyna Mort — Since Augustwhen violence against peaceful people erupted in Belarus, and during the ongoing horrific Russian attack on Ukraine — destroying so many lives, homes and streets where people went about their usual delights and sorrows, creating memories, creating themselves, libraries, planting trees for their grandchildren — I have seen poetry used to disturb people who should have been comforted and to comfort people who should have been disturbed.

I have seen journalists and academics use poetry for the purpose of plucking the silence. A life above anything. Q The White Review — You spoke earlier of your experiences of Rome and Minsk, the sense of power that a city can convey and the presence of history in the private life of an individual. Many of the poems in Music for the Dead and Resurrected were written in Rome, where you are currently on a writing fellowship.

What does it feel like to be there, as opposed to the US where you are based, and what is the current situation in Minsk? Here, I have a beautiful writing space: high ceiling, heavy wooden desk, an enormous window and inside the window, like inside a frame, an old stone pine. I love how white stone looks blue in the sunlight. How did you decide to order it, and when did you feel it was complete or finished as a book and ready to go out into the world?

A Valzhyna Mort — There are writers who speak about their process with great insight and beauty. I just dive into writing. Without taking its eyes off me a cat licks its gray paw as if sharpening a knife. Mama yells yes to another drink. Read Full Citation. One by one, streets introduced themselves with the names of national murderers.

In the State Archives, covers hardened like scabs over the ledgers. Future that runs on the schedule of public buses, from the zoo to the circus, what future; what is your alibi for these ledgers, these streets, this apartment, this future?

Valzhyna mort biography examples: Valzhyna Mort is a poet and

The purse opened like a screaming mouth. Its two shiny buckles watched me through doors, through walls, through jazz. Who has taught you to be a frightening face, purse? These poems are not only moving, they do the most elementary work of human language. They elevate the miserable, the barbarian, the numb to the level of universal idiom of wisdom and grace.

The stakes of humanity are central to Mort, who seeks to offer a voice to those denied one throughout history. These are poems of reclamation and resurrection; to live in them is to confront the hard work of witness. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikimedia Commons Wikidata item. Belarusian poet. Life [ edit ].

Selected works [ edit ].