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Book

Deaf republic : poems

Call Number

  • 811 K155 (CEN, OSH)

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Publication Information

Minneapolis, Minnesota : Graywolf Press, [2019]

Physical Description

76 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Uniform Title

Poems. Selections

Summary

Deaf Republic opens in an occupied country in a time of political unrest. When soldiers breaking up a protest kill a deaf boy, Petya, the gunshot becomes the last thing the citizens hear--they all have gone deaf, and their dissent becomes coordinated by sign language. The story follows the private lives of townspeople encircled by public violence. At once a love story, an elegy, and an urgent plea, these poems confronts our time's vicious atrocities and our collective silence in the face of them.

Notes

Poems.

Contents

  • We lived happily during the war
  • Dramatis personae
  • Gunshot
  • As soldiers march, Alfonso Covers the Boy's face with a newspaper
  • Alfonso, in snow
  • Deafness, an insurgency, begins
  • Alfonso stands answerable
  • That map of bone and opened valves
  • Townspeople circle the Boy's body
  • Of Weddings before the war
  • Still newlyweds
  • Soldiers aim at us
  • Checkpoints
  • Before the war, we made a child
  • As soldiers choke the stairwell
  • 4 a.m. bombardment
  • Arrival
  • Lullaby
  • Question
  • While the child sleeps, Sonya undresses
  • Cigarette
  • Dog sniffs
  • What we cannot hear
  • Central Square
  • Widower
  • For his wife
  • I, This body
  • Her dresses
  • Elegy
  • Above blue tin roofs, deafness
  • City like a guillotine shivers on its way to the neck
  • In the bright sleeve of the sky
  • To live
  • Townspeople watch them take Alfonso
  • Away
  • Eulogy
  • Question
  • Such is the story made of stubbornness and a little air
  • Townspeople speak of Galya on her green bicycle
  • When Momma Galya first protested
  • Bundle of laundry
  • What are days
  • Galya whispers, as Anushka nuzzles
  • Galya's puppeteers
  • In Bombardment, Galya
  • Little bundles
  • Galya's toast
  • Theater nights
  • And while puppeteers are arrested
  • Soldiers don't like looking foolish
  • Search patrols
  • Lullaby
  • Firing squad
  • Question
  • Yet, I am
  • Trial
  • Pursued by the men of Vasenka
  • Anonymous
  • And yet, on some nights
  • In a time of peace.

Subjects

Genres

Poetry.