The Work of Grief

Vera Polozkova is a poetess, author of collections of poetry such as “Photosynthesis”, “Nepoemanie”, “Ostocherchenie”, and “Responsible Child”. “The Work of Grief” is a new long-awaited book of poetry, which includes a hundred poems written over seven years. “The Work of Grief” is a book that has been collected, accumulated, and built up over seven years in a row: difficult years, wonderful years, during which my three children were born, my marriage was concluded and fell apart, the familiar picture of the world creaked and burst at the seams, wars began between the countries dearest to me, my friends passed away, people around me showed miracles of spiritual generosity or chose to betray everything they proclaimed and loved; when everything I knew about myself, everything I saw my future as, time overturned and turned inside out several times. This is a book about how closely all these states are intertwined in us: helplessness, bitterness, love, rage, humility, despair, rapture with the present. About how growing up is exactly how we try to grieve that we are no longer omnipotent. How we meet our shadow, our weakness, how we accept our own imperfection, inequality with our expectations. This is a book about how craft saves. About how my soul has found its home, and this is a small room with a veranda overlooking the ocean. This is a book about how balance, knowledge, the ability to rely only on yourself are much more expensive than we thought in our youth. But no matter how much we give for them, they are our most important acquisition. "Vera Polozkova