Polina Cosgrave
Polina Cosgrave was born in Volgograd in Russia and now lives in Dublin. She is a bilingual writer, performer and Arts Council award recipient.
Her first collection, My Name Is, was published by Dedalus Press in 2020. Her work is included in The Forward Book of Poetry 2022, has appeared in Russian journals and, here, in Banshee, Crannóg, The Irish Times, Southword and The Stinging Fly.
Her film, Currency Exchange, was chosen for the Irish Poetry-Film screening at the 2023 Ó Bhéal Winter Warmer Festival.
Cargo
Make sure the sparks are flying high
from underneath your heels
when you’re dancing like crazy
to the devil’s music.
In the novel art of Polina Cosgrave’s second collection poems address her young daughter, weigh the world ahead of her and posit a better future.
Evocations of the author’s native Russia and a country ‘where no one can sleep at night’ pave the way for the chilling documentary detail of the title poem and the desperation it fends off. But this wide- ranging book also embraces the erotic (‘the mere touch of you / is a lit match’) and the ecstatic (‘just put your palm / between them / and you’ll know’) as they meet the tenderness of poems such as ‘What Makes You Special’.
With social consciousness, wit, elegance and a cavalier abandon, Cargo confirms the presence of a daring, vital new voice in Irish poetry.
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