National Network for Equitable Library Service

"Mort is a fireball. . . . Personal, political, and passionate, Mort's poetry will surely sustain many reading audiences. Highly recommended." — Library Journal. "A one-of-a-kind work of passion and insight." — Midwest Book Review. "Mort's style — tough and terse almost to the point of aphorism — recalls the great Polish poets Czeslaw Milosz and Wislawa Szymborska." — Los Angeles Times. Valzhyna Mort is a dynamic Belarusian poet, and Collected Body is her first collection composed in English. Whether writing about sex — relatives — violence — or fish markets as opera, Mort insists on vibrant, dark truths. "Death hands you every new day like a golden coin," she writes, then warns that as the bribe grows "it gets harder to turn down." "Preface": on a bare tree — a red beast, so still, it has become the tree. now it's the tree that prowls over the beast, a cautious beast itself. a stone thrown at its breast is so fast — the stone has become the beast. now it's the beast that throws itself like a stone, blood like a dog-rose tree on a windy day, and the moon is trying on your face for the annual masquerade of the dead. death decides to wait to hear more. so death mews: first — your story, then — me. Valzhyna Mort was born in Minsk, Belarus. Her American debut, Factory of Tears, appeared in 2008 and she was featured on the cover of Poets & Writers. She has received many honors and awards, including a Civitella Raineri fellowship. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland.