Toska

Toska derives its title from the Russian word which denotes a melancholic longing without a singular cause, longing for a better world than the late-stage capitalist hell we live in.

Toska explores a sense of rootlessness and a sort of anti-nationalism; how the pervasive sense of being an immigrant or "in but not of" a place never quite dissipates, particularly amid the dissonance and alienation felt within U.S. culture gunning towards a vision of imperialist capitalist white-supremacist hegemony. These poems come to the weary conclusion, time and time again, that sexual liberalism/liberation and hedonism are only one sort of revelation - that this sort of openness and exploration isn't enough to save anyone from despair or the existentially weary feeling of toska from which the title takes its name. But desire is not just Eros -- the poems carry a strong desire for a different world, for everyone.

Author: Alina Pleskova
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Deep Vellum Publishing
Published: 06/13/2023
Pages: 120
Weight: 0.3lbs
Size: 8.74h x 5.83w x 0.32d
ISBN: 9781646052721