F Letter: New Russian Feminist Poetry

F Letter assembles the feminist poets who have palpably changed the Russian language over the last decade. Against the backdrop of state violence and oppression, this is electric dissent in pursuit of a democratic, egalitarian future. A lexicon for revolution worldwide.

This poetry's brilliance lies in its rhythm, energy, and depth of emotion – in its universal relevance rather than applied politics.

F Letter takes its name from the Russian-language journal F pis'mo. Since 2017, this has been the centre of feminist and LGBTQ+ writing, protest, and activism across Eastern Europe and Russia. It is rare that literature can wholly reinvent a language – and yet, F Letter has done so at the scale of the letter itself, coining, for instance, the 'feminitives' that are now an everyday controversy in Russian society. The danger that the authors confront for such transgressive work cannot be underestimated. Many – like F pis'mo's founding editor, Galina Rymbu – are forced into exile under threat of draconian prison sentences, on charges of 'pornography' and 'gay propaganda'. Others have been added to the 'kill list' of the hate group, Pila, which was likely behind the murder of Yelena Gregoriva. And yet, these writers continue to organise – most recently leading the protest against the arrest of the young illustrator Yulia Tsvetkova. My Vagina, the last poem in the anthology, was composed by Rymbu as its rallying cry. Far from a symbolic act, the poem has, in the space of weeks, been translated into twelve languages and taken up by feminist and LGBTQ+ causes worldwide.

Foreword by Eileen Myles. Texts by Lida Yusupova, Daria Serenko, Lolita Agamalova, Elena Kostyleva, Egana Djabbarova, Oksana Vasyakina, Elena Georgievskaya, Stanislava Mogileva, Ekaterina Simonova, Nastya Denisova, Yulia Podlubnova, Galina Rymbu.

256 pages, 7 x 10.8 cm, softcover, English / Russian, isolarii (New York).