The Venus of Odesa by Askold Melnyczuk

PRE-ORDERPraise for The Venus of Odesa   Compassion and irony define the human predicaments and historical conditions in Askold Melnyczuk’s extraordinary new collection of poems that spans nearly fifty years. His cosmopolitan perspective—one that twines Ukraine and New England—probes time and death, and the relationship between the tragic and the comic with a nimble wit that humanizes. These poems shake you up in the most important ways that poetry can. —Peter Balakian, author of Ozone Journal, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for poetry When I heard that Askold Melnyczuk had finally collected his poetry written over the past fifty years, I thought, High time! Now those who know him as a superb fiction writer, a tireless advocate for Ukrainian and American writers, a publisher who publishes books for the sole reason that he loves them, and a gentle scoffer at all things/people/causes that are bloated on their own self-importance, will get to see yet another side of his literary geniu