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Contributor

Valzhyna Mort

Portrait of writer and translator Valzhyna Mort
Photo by Kapitonova
Contributor

Valzhyna Mort

Valzhyna Mort was born in Minsk, Belarus, and moved to the United States in 2006. She is the author of the poetry collections Factory of Tears (Copper Canyon Press, 2008) and Collected Body (Copper Canyon Press 2012). She received the Lannan Foundation Literary Fellowship and the Bess Hokin Prize, as well as the 2005 Crystal of Vilenica Award in Slovenia and the 2008 Burda Poetry Prize in Germany. She lives in Washington, DC.

Articles by Valzhyna Mort

Sunset over a field with melting snow
Photo by Vitali Adutskevich on Unsplash
Umbilical
By Julia Cimafiejeva
I thought I unburdened / myself / but even invisible / the braid grows / with memory
Translated from Belarusian by Valzhyna Mort & Hanif Abdurraqib
Multilingual
from Baudelaire
By Uladzimir Niakliaeu
They won't come at night and torture you in a dim cellar behind bars. Sleep, criminal! There's nobody to ask if you are guilty or not guilty. Your judge is sleeping, your guards are asleep, and…
Translated from Belarusian by Valzhyna Mort
Memory of Cranes
By Uladzimir Niakliaeu
A migrating bird has broken its wing against the wire of my father's house. Now it shrieks as if somebody were sawing iron: It's you! It's your fault! In response, the flock turns around.…
Translated from Belarusian by Valzhyna Mort
A Game
By Uladzimir Niakliaeu
Before noon the sky grew dark and later it fell on the road as black fire. I leaned, picked up the fire, and tossed it from one hand to the other. The fire scorched my right hand, and blackened the left.…
Translated from Belarusian by Valzhyna Mort
Dark Thoughts
By Regina Derieva
I'm almost like that dark hallway
Translated from Russian by Valzhyna Mort
Unity of Form
By Regina Derieva
People zealously granted me headless nails / and spools without thread.
Translated from Russian by Valzhyna Mort
Learn
“maybe you too sometimes fantasize”
By Valzhyna Mort
maybe you too sometimes fantasizethat god resembles your most difficult teacherthe one who never gave the highest markone day he invites your parents to schooland who knows what he is telling them thereperhaps…
Translated from Belarusian by Franz Wright
“What would I wish for”
By Valzhyna Mort
and the mountains are kneeling like runners at the starting line
Translated from Belarusian by Franz Wright
Men
By Valzhyna Mort
trembling I scatter at their touch / their heartbeats open doors
Translated from Belarusian by Franz Wright
Belarusian
By Valzhyna Mort
this is how love loved to visit us / and snatch us veiled
Translated from Belarusian by Franz Wright