Factory of Tears

Valzhyna Mort

In her first American publication, poet Valzhyna Mort contends with the joys and sorrows that comprise the heartache of self discovery. Factory of Tears, co-translated from the Belarusian by Elizabeth Oehlkers Wright and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Franz Wright, juxtaposes youthful coming-of-age against the struggles of a nation’s emergent vitality. Self-identification, national independence, and the bounty of metaphor and language take us to an edge where everything is wild.

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ISBN: 9781556592744

Format: Paperback

Juveniles

because we are children

between days and nights
as between adults’ feet in a dance hall
painting our faces like easter eggs
slipping into one another’s mouth
our tongues
like red envelopes
bribes

because we are children
ali baba and allahu akbar
are the same to us

unbelievers we are sincerely grateful
to christ for his blood
and each one is fully prepared
to pay a lot of money for it

because we are children
what could be worse?
the life we live—you’ll never see anything like it, even in the movies

and summer our fat-ass nanny
is feeding us her sweet traffic jam
in the craters of cities whose names we’re reciting

starting with sir in a whisper
because we are children
we are the sugar of the earth

and if we seem green
it’s only on account of the traffic lights
but in an instant you will see
the lights will tear open their chests
revealing red hearts

because we are children
juveniles

and we fly all airplanes
and all airplanes fly to minsk
because we are children
no one is going to deny us the city we grew up in

About the Author

Valzhyna Mort is the author of Factory of Tears and Collected Body (both from Copper Canyon Press). She is a recipient of the Lannan Literary Award, the Bess Hokin Prize from Poetry, an Amy Clampitt fellowship, the Gulf Coast translation prize, and the Glenna Luschei Prairie Schooner Award. Born in Minsk, Belarus, she teaches at Cornell University and writes in English and Belarusian. Valzhyna Mort’s new book, Music for the Dead and Resurrected, is forthcoming from FSG.

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Reviews

“… Recalls the great Polish poets Czesław Miłosz and Wisława Szymborska.” —Los Angeles Times

“Factory of Tears charts progression of a strong female voice from a child’s experience of the world seen from between grown-ups’ knees to a young adult’s, infused with vibrant sexuality and the desire to see the world on its own terms. The most beguiling feature of this work is how these viewpoints bleed into one another with biting, playful wit, and how, ultimately, the poetic voice strives to understand the world by interiorizing it.” —Redactions

“[Mort] doesn’t mess around trying to beautify what is not… and yet, she finds beauty in unexpected places.” —Black Sheep Dances

“Chronicling the vibrant coming-of-age of an emerging nation, Factory of Tears touches upon the re-emergence of cultural heritage and national identity, and sometimes contentious fallout from such resurrections. A one-of-a-kind work of passion and insight.” —Midwest Book Review

“[Mort’s] brittle, ragged fusion of the personal and political is visceral, skillfully combining the melancholic and elegiac with the wistful and bittersweet.” —Reno News & Review

“[Mort] is most characterized by an obstinate resistance and rebellion against the devaluation of life, which forces her to multiply intelligent questions, impressive thoughts, and alluring metaphors, while her rhythm surprisingly arises as a powerful tool for the most dramatic moments of her verses… One of the best young poets in the world today.” —World Literature Today

“What Robert Lowell said of Sylvia Plath—that ‘language never dies in her mouth’—is how I feel about Valzhyna Mort. If you’re American, you’re lucky to have her among you.” —Katie Ford, On the Seawall

“… Mort explore[s] the possibilities afforded to [her] by language that, just like us, departs and reappears more adept, each and every instance giving meaning to our most profound questions and predicaments.” —West Branch

“One of the many reasons why Copper Canyon Press is such a treasure is its history of publishing books that present the poems in the poet’s original language en face with the English translations.” —Port Townsend Leader