For the first time this year, The White Review Poet’s Prize was open to poets based anywhere in the world. Last month we announced a shortlist of eight poets. ...
Elena Fanailova (b. 1962) is a Russian poet and journalist with Radio Liberty. In 2010 she was awarded the Best Translated Book Award for The Russian Version (Ugly Duckling Presse). Once noted for her verbal pyrotechnics, where slang and rhythmical breaks undercut high art conventions, Fanailova is currently experimenting with absence of poetic affect.
‘To live,’ writes Walter Benjamin, ‘means to leave traces’. As one might expect, Benjamin’s observation is not without a certain melancholy. Traces are lost...