Post by rachelhol112 on May 31, 2013 19:23:14 GMT -5
Valzhyna Mort was born in Minsk, Belarus, where she grew up in a world of turmoil, transition, and uncertainty – the Soviet Union broke apart and Belarus entered the capitalist world when Mort was nine years old. Remarkably, Mort took the memories of some of her most trying experiences and became an electrifying presence as both a poet and an advocate fighting against the deterioration of her country’s language.
As a child, she spent her summers in a tiny house outside of Minsk, where her grandmother taught her about her family’s painful history. To Mort, the stories became more real when she could see the house where the Soviets kept political prisoners in the 1930s and when she noticed that her grandmother (a Westerner) and her grandfather (an Easterner) lived only a few miles away from each other and yet had completely different experiences. She became even more fascinated by her country’s history when she learned Belarusian in school. Learning this deteriorating language (there are only 7.5 million speakers worldwide) was a huge influence on Mort, as a writer and later on as an advocate. Mort, who was studying to become a musician at the time, was inspired by the fact that Belarusian was “very musical” and has said that poetry was “my way of writing music in a language.” Mort brings her musicality to her poetry in a way that makes our sense come alive – she plays with rhythm, tone, and language in poems that are down-to-earth but grandiose in their impact on readers worldwide.
Since then, Mort has become an international rising star, with the Cuirt International Festival of Literature calling her “a true original” akin to Allen Ginsberg. Her poetry is empowering, primal, and a call to action for those around the world who stand somewhere between greatness and failure. The fact that she publishes poems in Belarusian as well as English is a strong political statement, reminding Belarusians and Russians alike that when “we ourselves are the language”, it is important to preserve the language which makes Belarus unique.
She is not just a poet making social commentary but a mentor to people bound by their circumstances. A quick skim of Factory of Tears boldly shows Mort trying to restore a sense of empowerment to those who are “recipients of workers’ comp from the heroic Factory of Tears” and yet are “happy with what they have.” Her poems shine light on the experiences of survivors who believe “famine is nutrition, poverty is wealth, thirst is water” and challenge us to leave alone the “lust…sitting inside me like a cherry pit” and not suppress it just because strong emotions can be frightening. Even in the darkness of post-Soviet Eastern Europe, Mort finds threads of hope and tries to bring them, no matter how twisted, to Belarus and to readers worldwide.
Those who are here tonight are in for a treat; when presenting her work, Mort is intelligent, incisive, and relatable, not just as a poet or performer but as a human being. When I read her poetry, I can avoid those who say, “You’re never going to graduate [life] with honors.” Instead, I feel connected to my vitality, my most primal emotions, and the need to never settle for less. I want to thank Valzhyna Mort for entering the world “the way you crawl from the ruins after a bombing” and finding beauty in its uncertainty. Let’s give it up for Valzhyna Mort.
Words: 575
As a child, she spent her summers in a tiny house outside of Minsk, where her grandmother taught her about her family’s painful history. To Mort, the stories became more real when she could see the house where the Soviets kept political prisoners in the 1930s and when she noticed that her grandmother (a Westerner) and her grandfather (an Easterner) lived only a few miles away from each other and yet had completely different experiences. She became even more fascinated by her country’s history when she learned Belarusian in school. Learning this deteriorating language (there are only 7.5 million speakers worldwide) was a huge influence on Mort, as a writer and later on as an advocate. Mort, who was studying to become a musician at the time, was inspired by the fact that Belarusian was “very musical” and has said that poetry was “my way of writing music in a language.” Mort brings her musicality to her poetry in a way that makes our sense come alive – she plays with rhythm, tone, and language in poems that are down-to-earth but grandiose in their impact on readers worldwide.
Since then, Mort has become an international rising star, with the Cuirt International Festival of Literature calling her “a true original” akin to Allen Ginsberg. Her poetry is empowering, primal, and a call to action for those around the world who stand somewhere between greatness and failure. The fact that she publishes poems in Belarusian as well as English is a strong political statement, reminding Belarusians and Russians alike that when “we ourselves are the language”, it is important to preserve the language which makes Belarus unique.
She is not just a poet making social commentary but a mentor to people bound by their circumstances. A quick skim of Factory of Tears boldly shows Mort trying to restore a sense of empowerment to those who are “recipients of workers’ comp from the heroic Factory of Tears” and yet are “happy with what they have.” Her poems shine light on the experiences of survivors who believe “famine is nutrition, poverty is wealth, thirst is water” and challenge us to leave alone the “lust…sitting inside me like a cherry pit” and not suppress it just because strong emotions can be frightening. Even in the darkness of post-Soviet Eastern Europe, Mort finds threads of hope and tries to bring them, no matter how twisted, to Belarus and to readers worldwide.
Those who are here tonight are in for a treat; when presenting her work, Mort is intelligent, incisive, and relatable, not just as a poet or performer but as a human being. When I read her poetry, I can avoid those who say, “You’re never going to graduate [life] with honors.” Instead, I feel connected to my vitality, my most primal emotions, and the need to never settle for less. I want to thank Valzhyna Mort for entering the world “the way you crawl from the ruins after a bombing” and finding beauty in its uncertainty. Let’s give it up for Valzhyna Mort.
Words: 575