”Lavishly mordant, magically bitter, erotically sardonic.” —Alicia Ostriker
Opulent, playful, and sensual, Polina Barskova’s poems have earned her a reputation as the finest Russian poet under forty. While steeped in Russian and classical culture, Barskova’s work remains unmistakably contemporary, at once classic and edgy – always fresh, new and even startling. A major English-language event, this volume collects poems from seven earlier books as well as from her recent work, all previously untranslated into English. The Zoo In Winteris a remarkable menagerie of poems, of a strange and intoxicating beauty.
”Polina Barskova’s work emerges from an intelligence and a sensibility in which poetry matters, and not only to poets. These poems arise from a confluence of history and lyric: fraught with danger but vibrant with inquiry.” —Marilyn Hacker