My Homeland, Oh My Crimea

The hands of our ancestors are ever active. Weaving, as they do, their signs and marks into everything manifest. Hardly a surprise, on reflection, since the departed have always heavily outnumbered those presently surrounding us. Yet, realizing the unending power of our forebears may shock unwary observers, while openly unsettling the faint of heart. After all, ancestral influences can take challengingly repellent, unrepentantly grotesque, or even divinely aesthetic expression. All meaning, on the level of the Global Text, poets usually fall into a necessary burlesque when such spectres appear in verse. Or, contrarily, feel compelled to adopt an overly tragic attitude in order to ward-off their threatening atmospheres. Be either of these errors as they may, the secret power of ancestry is still found in the unlimited semiosis it incarnates in our own lives. A process referentially labelling, as well as cleverly inducing, creative identity. Indeed, not to admit these traditional benefits as an honest (but nevertheless scripted) engagement with ourselves remains the real problem. Although flatly denying literary significations of this kind is cultural blindness to say the very least. Themes, so stated, clearly explored in my own work and unexpectedly shared by the remarkable poetess Lenifer Mambetova. In which case, introducing My Homeland, Oh My Crimea in its first English edition is not simply an honour, but also a reminder of our common humanity. Moreover, as the first Crimean-Tartar poetry collection ever published in the English-speaking world, it is an extremely rare privilege. Certainly, Lennifer's terse and highly evocative style will delight her new readerships. Reminding them through politicized image and lamenting symbol that writer's "learn" prose, although they "express" poetry. The latter being an act of healing, along with the possibility of genuine transcendence.