07 Dec Two Poems from Landguage/Mirror Me by Marina Blitshteyn
Landguage
Still you can feel alienated from
your own language, like it’s still an English
they’re speaking and not (which version?) even
if you’re a native speaker (how native?)
even if you’re from around here (like where?)—
I’m on a bus riding through The Village
of Lisle and can’t read its graffiti, or
I’m at a conference on Poetry and
Political Theory and can’t access
a talk. Still a stranger in a strange lag.
daughter
i’ve met someone who’s not myself
i left a body by the kitchen, age 5
handing over her neck for slaughter
isn’t it rare to be such a dutiful daughter
and still ask for nothing in return
haven’t i earned the chance to perish
some day i’ll cherish the memories
clock on the stove will stall and stall
but i’ll be along for it all, the strangle,
the murder, the hiding of knives, age 5
isn’t it rare to announce your passing
i’m lashing out at myself, before i go
you’ll know the shape of it
by 15 the body was gone but the space of it
loomed in the room, i recognize the lurk
from years of therapy, i’ve met a man
who wasn’t him and some who were
i buried all of them but they roam
mother forgive me my indolence
remember you want this for me
to be free of your memories too
isn’t it rare to want all of it, even the chokes
even the stomach that lodged in your throat
i was the kind to spare none of it
i was ahead at the front of it, age 5
i watched and watched you suffer it
i’m offering you a way out, you say
with yourself in tow, i want that for you
who martyrs the madder marauders
who mirrors the iron in stoves
i’ve met a new man and i’m over it
being in love with my past, my post
my purple openings, stall and stole
the head for the hole, the crow
for the crown, i fold for all of it
go caw around somebody else’s business
show me forgiveness, forgiveness
About the Poet
Born in Soviet Moldova, Marina Blitshteyn and her family came to the US as refugees in 1991, eventually settling in the Buffalo suburb of Williamsville. She studied English at the State University of New York at Buffalo and Creative Writing at Columbia University. Marina was very active in the Buffalo poetry community before moving to New York City for her M.F.A in Poetry at Columbia, appearing in the 2017 anthology My Next Heart: New Buffalo Poetry (BlazeVOX Books) and in Just Buffalo Literary Center’s Silo City Reading Series in June of 2018.
Her third poetry collection Landguage/Mirror Me was published by the Bunny Presse imprint of Fonograf Editions in November of 2025. These two poems appear in that collection. About the book, Fonograf Editions writes: “Formally distinct, the two [component] chapbooks composing the tête-bêche Landguage/Mirror Me share the trappings of gendered and classed experiences where freedom isn’t free. Located and then dislocated from place, grounded in Americanisms and warping them, self- and socially- conscious, Landguage/Mirror Me voices the silences of women in exile. As playful as they are vexed, the poems in Landguage/Mirror Me estrange and beckon with their rhythms and mouthfeel.”
In March of 2025, Marina was also selected winner of the 2024 Tenth Gate Prize in Poetry. Judge Richard Hoffman selected her manuscript form a more perfect from the six finalists, and publication of the book is slated for January 2026. About the book, Hoffman wrote: “Form a more perfect delves into the multifaceted reality of emigrating to and living in America in our time, in tandem with the flowering of the poet’s vocation.”
Blitshteyn is also the author of Two Hunters (Argos Books, 2019), and i take your voice (Switchback Books, 2022), winner of The Gatewood Prize. Her prior chapbooks include Russian for Lovers (Argos Books), Nothing Personal (Bone Bouquet Books), $kill$ (Dancing Girl Press), and Sheet Music (Sunnyoutside Press).
The Poem of the Week feature is curated by literary legacy awardee R.D. Pohl.