In these concise and sensory poems, Anna Glazova invites us to watch the world unfold — a snow-covered bud, a bee, a swamp, the fur of an animal, an ice hole — as well as the human life cycle as it turns and returns. Glazova is also a photographer, and light, shadow, and darkness filter through these poems. Listening is important, too:
 
“put your ear to the ground: the log and the bark beetle
sing as one — they begin.”
 
Glazova came of age during perestroika, moved to Germany as a young woman, and received her doctorate in the U.S. Her poetry is strongly influenced by Paul Celan, whose work she has translated to Russian. She has published six books of poetry, and in addition to Celan, has translated the work of Unica Zürn, Robert Walser, Franz Kafka, Walter Benjamin, Franz Rosenzweig, and Werner Hamacher. She won the Andrei Bely Prize for her poetry collection, For the Shrew. She is teaching at Dartmouth University during the fall of 2022. 
 
Alex Niemi's poetry and translations from the French, Russian, and Spanish have appeared in The Offing, Columbia Journal, Asymptote and other publications. She is the translator of The John Cage Experiences by Vincent Tholomé (Autumn Hill Books, 2020) and the author of the poetry chapbook, Elephant (dancing girl press, 2020). She received her MFA in literary translation from the University of Iowa. She lives in Milwaukee.