Some Worlds for Dr. Vogt

Poetry. Matvei Yankelevich is a fabulist. In his excellent new book he is singing ‘a world in a flash of contours.’ The voice is dynamic, and performs in a syncretic register: lyric, narrative, citation, essay, and vaudeville are all present and doing important work to expose us to ‘the animation of f-stops.’ SOME WORLDS FOR DR. VOGT is a spirited investigation by a truly original and fantastic poet.–Peter Gizzi

In this suite of forty-five poems and occasional epigraphic interpolations, Matvei Yankelevich posits worlds, each an instant of place in motion. Time, site, transience: these are the indelibles of world life. And, as such, under Yankelevich’s observant eye and working hand and co-passionate mind, these world instants are closely observed and vastly imagined. For Yankelevich, worlds are intimate challenges. His poems reciprocate. They are inviting–and ‘you’ to whom the invitation is proffered (o world, o reader, o stranger, o history and now and lock of hair and bee) will find yourself welcomed into conditions that are unnerving and familiar and exquisite.–Lyn Hejinian