Without Protection

Baba Yaga jumps the Brighton line in this rambunctious debut by poet and astrologer Mukomolova. Reimagined fairy tales (from “the old country, which is/ only old to me,”) and snippets of Russian appear in a range of forms: prose, narrative, and found poems, as well as lyrics that test the limits of the page. The cumulative effect is restless: “We, the daughters between countries,/ wear our mean mothers like scarves around our necks,” the poet explains; “I was small. I built a self outside myself because a child needs shelter.” Memories of adolescence careen (“Pablo slides his finger through a hole in my tights”), slamming hard against the present (a text message from, presumably, earlier that day). City scenes pop, vivid as street photography. By the end of the book, ex-lovers form a raucous throng: “On all fours// I suck her clit—gentle—she slaps me./ I imagine whipped tips of soft serve.” The delirious poem “Vasya/Venus/Violet/Violent” throws Anaïs Nin into the ring with Courtney Love: “Come brute come violent/ violet, knuckle-rough// I’m infant blonde: weak at the crown.” Some readers will resist the book’s mosh pit ethos, which can make it hard to hear its tender gifts: “She loves me I know// as if love is matter and I hold it.” (Apr.)