Parallax offers a lyrical narrative of parenting a neurodiverse child under the shadow of the ongoing war in Ukraine, the poet’s birthplace. As her child expresses a fascination with death and violence, Kolchinsky struggles to process the war unfolding far away, on the same soil where so many of her ancestors perished during the Holocaust.
Anchored by a series of poems that look to the moon, this collection explores displaced perspectives and turns to the celestial to offer meditations on how elements formed in distant stars account for so much of our human DNA. In these poems, writes series editor Patricia Smith, Kolchinsky “clutches at a feeling of home that is both unfamiliar and deeply treasured, longs for all that was left behind, struggles to come to terms with the rampant violence devastating a landscape that still, in so many encouraging and heartbreaking ways, belongs to her.”
“Julia Kolchinsky,” writes Ilya Kaminsky, “is one of my favorite poets–wise, heartfelt, a fountain of energy, of nonstop humane music. She is brilliant with form, yet in her hands it doesn’t have that distance, that—for the lack of a better word, and we really should invent a better word!—formalism. There is real tenderness and openness in these poems’ adventures with stanzas and narrative and omens. And her villanelles! They are like no one else’s! Strong voices live in this book–as near as the poet’s son, and as far as her homeland, Ukraine, currently in the midst of horrific war–and yet somehow so much wonder is delivered via Kolchinsky’s line-breaks and metaphors, so much love is given by what is said, and what is withheld, as is proper for a lyric poet. In the end, I feel this is most of all a book about being a mother, which is to say, it’s about the universe.”
Julia Kolchinsky (formerly Dasbach) emigrated from Dnipro, Ukraine as when she was six years old. She is the author of three poetry collections: The Many Names for Mother, Don’t Touch the Bones, and 40 WEEKS. Her writing has appeared in POETRY, Ploughshares, and American Poetry Review. She is Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing at Denison University.
Parallax will be published in Spring 2025 and is available for pre-order now.