Those Absences Now Closest - (Carnegie Mellon University Press Poetry) by Dzvinia Orlowsky (Paperback)

About the Book

Poems that reflect on the current tragedy in Ukraine. In her newest collection, Ukrainian American poet Dzvinia Orlowsky is a witness, never a bystander, ready to stare down the demons, to "cut yourself with a dull razor." She sets up house among the nightmares of intergenerational trauma and, as far as anyone can, humanizes them. Through her work, Orlowsky prompts us to enter our own histories instead of just watching.

Book Synopsis

Poems that reflect on the current tragedy in Ukraine.

In her newest collection, Ukrainian American poet Dzvinia Orlowsky is a witness, never a bystander, ready to stare down the demons, to "cut yourself with a dull razor." She sets up house among the nightmares of intergenerational trauma and, as far as anyone can, humanizes them. Through her work, Orlowsky prompts us to enter our own histories instead of just watching.

Review Quotes

"Fusing the mythical with the political and the global with the personal, the poems in Orlowsky's Those Absences Now Closest offers a reflective authority about generational trauma and family stories and their necessity for the diaspora during times of war and hardship. These poems bear witness to the tragedies unfolding in war-torn Ukraine, and they bring the nightmarish demons of war--both figurative and literal--to the forefront for all to see."-- "Tupelo Quarterly"

"Those Absences Now Closest documents, with adroit craft and virtuosity, not only ubiquitous human grief and cruelty but also war's disastrous toll on the natural world: ('ask the horse if it knows // to what peace your body rushed off // after the catastrophic fire.') To this urgent, masterly testament of love and mourning, Orlowsky lends healing elements of family history, surreal struggle and surprise, and folkloric magic that bring to mind Chagall's captivating paintings."-- "Cyrus Cassells, author of To the Cypress Again and Again"

"Dzvinia Orlowsky's sensitively attuned poems listen for the beating animal heart of absences wrought by war and exile. They ask, 'what holds us / to the colorless burn // of family' and who is keeping count of the dead when the homeland is far and no one reports the bombings anymore. Those Absences Now Closest probes into the 'language of cold air, blank canvas of distance' to report with lyrical precision what's not on the news."-- "Mira Rosenthal"

"How does poetry enter this age? Our times are reflected back to us in screens of dazzling triviality and paralyzing crisis. Dzvinia Orlowsky's brilliant new book is a vision quest. Her work has the empathy and imaginative authority to literally inhabit generational trauma. There's a visceral directness in the tension between Prolog and Epilog, in the haunted mesmerizing voice that can bridge village Ukraine, Putin, and Twitter America. Mythic, gnomic, contemporary as the war being fought in the whites of our eyes, Those Absences Now Closest is a capstone to a superb career."-- "D. Nurkse"

About the Author

Dzvinia Orlowsky is a poet, translator, and a founding editor of Four Way Books. She is the author of six poetry collections published by Carnegie Mellon University Press, including Bad Harvest.