Larissa Shmailo

關於我：

REVIEWS OF MY NEW CHAPBOOK: A CURE FOR SUICIDE

Shmailo puts herself in the deceptive calmness of the eye of a hurricane, asks us to tell her what makes us tic, and takes us on the Harlem River Line, like the “Duke” took us on the “A” train. In a sea of mimics this poet is an original voice.

--Doug Holder, Ibbetson Street Press

True to her interest in poetry as spoken word and her numerous poetry and music CDs, these riotous dogwood blossoms of poems often demand that they be read aloud, even sung. At times, the reader may even catch him or herself slapping a hand against a thigh or tapping a toe in time with the poet's effortless rhymes and tight, but never restrictive, meter... Larissa Shmailo is a poet who sings, and fans of her spoken word CDs—as well as readers who enjoy their poetry flush with life, lust and the more awkward aspects of both—will find a lot to love in her latest offering.

---JoSelle Vanderhooft, The Pedestal Magazine

How can one not like a book that opens with the “Vow” that
We will love like dogwood.
Kiss like cranes.
Die like moths.
I promise.

and sensually seques thereafter?...there is an elegance here, a smooth, silken tongue that moistens the soul like divine chocolate on one’s lips.

---Cheryl Townsend, Feet in the Air

The most linguistically innovative poem of the collection is ‘Bloom’ – perhaps not surprisingly as it’s to a large extent inspired by the Molly Bloom stream-of-consciousness at the end of Joyce’s Ulysses. ...As ‘Bloom’ comes just before the end of A Cure For Suicide, it can be called a great note on which to close a great collection.

---Richard Barrett,Experimental Fiction and Poetry

To order A CURE FOR SUICIDE, go to http://cervenabarvapress.com Or send $7 to Gloria Mindock, Cervena Barva Press, P.O. BOX 440357 W. Somerville, Ma. 02144


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BIO
Larissa has been or will shortly be published in Barrow Street, Fulcrum, About: Poetry, Rattapallax, Big Bridge, Drunken Boat, We (Naropa), Lungfull!, American Translator’s Slavfile, and many other publications. Larissa has received “Critic’s Picks” notices for her readings and radio appearances from the New York Times, Village Voice, Maud Newton, and Time Out magazine. Her CDs, The No-Net World and Exorcism, are frequently heard on radio and Internet broadcasts. Her chapbook, A Cure for Suicide (Cervena Barva Press) has received glowing reviews (see below). Larissa is proud to be a director of TWiN Poetry, an informal collective spoken word artists, poets, and poetry lovers. Larissa translated the Russian Futurist opera Victory over the Sun which was performed at the first Next Wave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and internationally; a DVD of the original English-language production is part of the collection of the New York Museum of Modern Art. She recently contributed translations to the anthology Contemporary Russian Poetry published by Dalkey Archive Press.

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