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PORTSIDE CULTURE

WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?  
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Carine Topal

Pedestal Magazine
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_ Poet Carine Topal finds resistance even in the most crushingly
authoritarian society. _

, "Cassandra" by Michael Montlack

 

You are looking at a beating heart. Red Square, the front yard of
rulers, named for its loveliness. You are looking at a plaza of
lock-stepping uniforms and a few demonstrators. And tourists. Above
them, the minarets of St. Basil’s, its onion domes disquieted by a
huddle of limping babushkas holding yellowed posters and red flags in
their withered hands. They are listening to a man holding a megaphone.
How they bend their ears to the east, latch on to a phrase pregnant
with solution. The pensioners want their meager monthly rubles. They
want their borscht topped with dill, a sprig of parsley. A meat bone,
perhaps. They want potatoes freshly dug. A sturdy pair of shoes. Just
beyond, Vladimir Lenin flanks the square in a granite vault. You must
amble with vigilance. Keep your head down and eyes open. A dog barks.
A nut is shelled. A woman with a neatly pinned chignon walks by a
small troop of tourists wearing knee socks and sandals. A young artist
sits naked, his head down, looking at his scrotum that he’s nailed
to the cobble stones. His voice the free-world’s voice. People fill
the square like nerve endings. There are breadcrumbs and sparrows
pecking. Children laughing. The world is the world whether you are a
nanna raised in the fields or a young man from the Arbat stepping out
in good street clothes. What are you looking at? Pay attention to the
crenelated walls of the Kremlin, the Resurrection Gates. Visualize the
widow of a Chechen rebel, how she blows herself up at the entrance.

_Carine Topal was born and raised in NYC. She has been awarded
residencies in the U.S. and Russia, and is the recipient of numerous
poetry awards and honors. Topal’s fifth collection, In Order of
Disappearance, was published by the Pacific Coast Poetry Series in
2017. Her new book, Dear Blood, will be out in February 2025. She
lives in Southern California and teaches poetry and memoir workshops._

* Russia
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* Authoritarianism
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INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

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