December 21, 2020

Valzhyna Mort, "Music for the Dead and Resurrected" (Macmillan, 2020)

1 hour 24 minutes

An interview with celebrated Belarusian American poet, Valzhyna Mort. The publication of one of the collections poems, “Antigone, A Dispatch” in the New Yorker, brought attention to the anti-democratic tyranny in Belarus, where the most recent fair election was squashed by the Putin-puppet, Alexander Lukashenko. Music for the Dead and Resurrected (2020) is a testament to the voices and lives of her friends, family, and compatriots (especially her fellow artists) who have been brutalized in this anti-democratic power grab.

Books Recommended in this episode:

Valzhyna Mort recommends:

Carolyn Forché, In the Lateness of the World: Poems

Eduardo Corral, Guillotine: Poems

Victoria Chang, Obit

Michael Prior, Burning Province

Canisia Lubrin,The Dyzgraphxst

Joy Harjo, When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry

Kevin Young (edit.) African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle & Song

Ales Steger, Above the Sky Beneath the Earth

Galina Rymbu, Life in Space

Paul Celan, Memory Rose into Threshold Speech: The Collected Earlier Poetry: A Bilingual Edition

Rachel Eliza Griffiths, Seeing the Body

Eliza Griswold, If Men, Then

Nathalie Diaz, Postcolonial Love Song

Alice Oswald, Nobody: A Hymn to the Sea

Steven Leyva, The Understudy's Handbook

Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Associate Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro as World Literature, is under contract with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers.

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