Maria Stepanova is one of the most powerful and distinctive voices of Russia’s first post-Soviet literary generation. An award-winning poet and prose writer, she has also founded a major platform for independent journalism. Her verse blends formal mastery with a keen ear for the evolution of spoken language. As Russia’s political climate has turned increasingly repressive, Stepanova has responded with engaged writing that grapples with the persistence of violence in her country’s past and present. Some of her most remarkable recent work as a poet and essayist considers the conflict in Ukraine and the debasement of language that has always accompanied war.

The Voice Over brings together two decades of Stepanova’s work, showcasing her range, virtuosity, and creative evolution. Stepanova’s poetic voice constantly sets out in search of new bodies to inhabit, taking established forms and styles and rendering them into something unexpected and strange. Recognizable patterns of ballads, elegies, and war songs are transposed into a new key, infused with foreign strains, and juxtaposed with unlikely neighbors. As an essayist, Stepanova engages deeply with writers who bore witness to devastation and dramatic social change, as seen in searching pieces on W. G. Sebald, Marina Tsvetaeva, and Susan Sontag. Including contributions from ten translators, The Voice Over shows English-speaking readers why Stepanova is one of Russia’s most acclaimed contemporary writers.

Preface
Bibliographic Note
Introduction. “Speaking in Voices”: On Maria Stepanova’s Literary Creation, by Irina Shevelenko
Part I: The Here-World
A Gypski, a Polsk I, a Jewski, a Russki
The North of sleep. Head’s in a pillow cradle
Ahoy! Beyond the azure’s tempest
Adieu, until one branched floor higher
For you, but the voice of the straitened Muse
The Bride
The Pilot
The morning sun arises in the morning
As Danaë, prone in the incarce-chamber
It is certainly time to stop
Even bluer than the toilet tiles
(a birthday on the train)
(half an hour on foot)
July 3rd, 2004
The Women’s Locker Room at “Planet Fitness”
Sarah on the Barricades
The Desire to Be a Rib
Bus Stop: Israelitischer Friedhof
Zoo, Woman, Monkey
Part II: Displaced Person
And a vo-vo-voice arose
In the festive sky, impassivable, tinfurled
Saturday and Sunday burn like stars
In every little park, in every little square
Mom-pop didn’t know him
Mama, what janitor
A train rides down entire Russia
Ordnance was weeping in the open
The A went past, Tram-Traum
Well I don’t sing Kupitye papirosn
The light swells and pulses at the garden gate
In the village, in the field, in the forest
A deer, a deer stood in that place
The last songs are assembling
My dear, my little Liberty
There he lies in his new bed, a band of paper round his head
Don’t wait for us, my darling
Don’t strain your sight
Four Operas
In Unheard-of Simplicity
Displaced Person
Part III: Spolia
Spolia
War of the Beasts and the Animals
Today Before Yesterday (excerpt)
After the Dead Water
Intending to Live
At the Door of a Notnew Age
Part IV: Over Venerable Graves
The Maximum Cost of Living (Marina Tsvetaeva)
Conversations in the Realm of the Dead (Lyubov Shaporina)
What Alice Found There (Alisa Poret)
The Last Hero (Susan Sontag)
From That Side: Notes on Sebald
Over Venerable Graves
Notes