<DIV><p>"Mort is a fireball. . . . Personal, political, and passionate, Mort's poetry will surely sustain many reading audiences. Highly recommended."?<I>Library Journal</I></p><p>"A one-of-a-kind work of passion and insight."?<I>Midwest Book Review</I></p><p>"Mort's style?tough and terse almost to the point of aphorism?recalls the great Polish poets Czeslaw Milosz and Wislawa Szymborska."?<I>Los Angeles Times</I></p><p>Valzhyna Mort is a dynamic Belarusian poet, and <I>Collected Body</I> is her first collection composed in English. Whether writing about sex, relatives, violence, or fish markets as opera, Mort insists on vibrant, dark truths. "Death hands you every new day like a golden coin," she writes, then warns that as the bribe grows "it gets harder to turn down."</p><p><B>"Preface"</B></p><p><I>on a bare tree?<BR>a red beast,<BR>so still, it has become the tree.<BR>now it's the tree that prowls over the beast,<BR>a cautious beast itself.</I></p><p><I>a stone thrown at its breast<BR><br>is so fast?the stone has become the beast.<BR>now it's the beast that throws itself like a stone,<BR>blood like a dog-rose tree on a windy day,<BR>and the moon is trying on your face<BR>for the annual masquerade of the dead.</I></p><p><I>death decides to wait to hear more.<BR>so death mews:<BR>first?your story, then?me.</I></p><p><B>Valzhyna Mort</B> was born in Minsk, Belarus. Her American debut, <I>Factory of Tears</I>, appeared in 2008 and she was featured on the cover of <I>Poets & Writers</I>. She has received many honors and awards, including a Civitella Raineri fellowship. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland.</p></DIV>