Valzhyna Mort I

Poetry

Interviewed by: Angela Elam

Catalog Number(s): 20150102, 20130607

Interview Year(s): 2012

In part one of this interview, Belarusian poet Valzhyna Mort, winner of the 2005 Crystal of Vilenica Award in Slovenia and the 2008 Burda Poetry Prize in Germany, discusses her work, in particular her book, Factory of Tears. She admits that her poems are never truly finished and discusses how translating the work from Belarusian, with the help of poets Franz and Elizabeth Oehlkers-Wright, allowed her to both continue editing and find new meaning in her work. Mort reads from Factory of Tears in both English and Belarusian and introduces her 2011 book Collected Body with the transitional poem “For Grandmother.”