Kinship, the new collection of poetry by the bilingual author, Boston College professor Maxim D. Shrayer, weaves together some of the principal themes in modern Jewish history: ancestry in Eastern Europe, the Shoah, antisemitism, exile, displacement and immigration, Zionism and Israel. Shrayer’s richly orchestrated and formally elegant verse captures with poignancy and passion what it feels like to be a Jewish poet with Soviet roots, living in America during Russia’s brutal war in Ukraine. Kinship is, ultimately, a pained and inspiring meditation on writing between languages and cultures.
Spis treści
Kinship1
At the Elbow of Cape Cod3
The Linguist4
Valse Triste5
Stronger: For Tatiana6
Minsk Elegy7
Apples 'n Honey9
L’Éducation Sentimentale10
Bilateral Pneumonia11
A Russian-American Novel12
The Speaker’s Departure13
Three Incarnations of a Moscow Childhood Dachshund14
The Bombing of Odessa15
For My Daughters, on Yom Kippur17
Immigrant Quatrains of Clarity18
Bats at Sunset20
Madness21
My Talented Aunt and Her Political Allegiances22
Estonia. Many Years Hence…23
Eretz Israel: Seven Poems24
The Salt Pond in Autumn30
Crimean Sonnet31
Tired32
Homecoming33
O autorze
Maxim D. Shrayer, bilingual author, scholar, and translator, was born in Moscow in 1967 to a Jewish-Russian family and immigrated to the United States in 1987. A professor at Boston College, Shrayer has authored and edited more than twenty-five books. His recent poetry collections include the Russian-language Stikhi iz aipada (Poems from the i Pad, Tel Aviv, 2022) and the English-language Of Politics and Pandemics (Boston, 2020). Among Shrayer’s other books are the literary memoirs Waiting for America, Leaving Russia, and Immigrant Baggage. He is the recipient of a 2007 National Jewish Book Award and a 2012 Guggenheim Fellowship. He lives in Massachusetts with his wife, Dr. Karen E. Lasser, their daughters, Mira Isabella and Tatiana Rebecca, and their silver Jewdle, Stella.