Polina Barskova (born 1976) is a

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

poet. She was born in Leningrad (today

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

). Although her biological father is the distinguished poet Evgeny Rein, she was raised by her adoptive father, the scholar Yuri Barskov, and bears his last name. She started publishing her work at the age of nine, and her first book appeared when she was still a teenager, At the age of 20, she left Russia to pursue a PhD at

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant uni ...

. She taught Russian literature at

Hampshire College Hampshire College is a private liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. It was opened in 1970 as an experiment in alternative education, in association with four other colleges in the Pioneer Valley: Amherst College, Smith College, Mo ...

, and is now a professor at U.C. Berkeley. She has published several volumes of poetry, and she has been nominated for the Debut Prize and the

Andrei Bely Prize The Andrei Bely Prize ( Russian: Премия Андрея Белого; ''Premiya Andreya Belovo'') is the oldest independent literary prize awarded in Russia. It was established in 1978 by the staff of ''Hours'', the largest samizdat literar ...

in her native Russia. Her selected poems have appeared in English translation under the title ''The Zoo in Winter''. Her work has also appeared in anthologies such as ''The Ecco Anthology of International Poetry'', co-edited by

Ilya Kaminsky Ilya Kaminsky (born April 18, 1977) is a hard-of-hearing, USSR-born, Ukrainian-Russian-Jewish-American poet, critic, translator and professor. He is best known for his poetry collections ''Dancing in Odesa'' and ''Deaf Republic'', which have ear ...

. Kaminsky also translated a short volume of her poems ''This Lamentable City'' (Tupelo Press, 2010). She has done extensive archival work on the literature of the siege of Leningrad, resulting in the award-winning volume ''Written in the Dark: Five Poets in the Siege of Leningrad'' (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2016).

Books in English translation

* ''This Lamentable City'' (Tupelo Press, 2010) * ''The Zoo in Winter'' (Melville House Press, 2011) * ''Relocations'' (Zephyr Press, 2013) * ''Living Pictures'' (New York Review Books Classics, 2022).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:BARSKOVA, POLINA 1976 births Living people category:21st-century Russian poets Russian women poets University of California, Berkeley alumni Hampshire College faculty Writers from Saint Petersburg Russian emigrants to the United States