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Deaf republic : poems
Publication Information
Minneapolis, Minnesota : Graywolf Press, [2019]
Physical Description
76 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm
Uniform Title
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.