Valzhyna Mort is a poet and translator born in Minsk, Belarus. She is the author of three poetry collections, mostly recently “Music for the Dead and Resurrected”, named one of the best poetry book of 2020 by The New York Times and The NPR, and the winner of the 2020 International Griffin Poetry Prize and the 2022 UNT Rilke Prize. Mort is a recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Academy in Rome, the Lannan Foundation, and the Amy Clampitt Foundation. Her work has been honored with the Bess Hokin Prize from Poetry, the Glenna Luschei Prairie Schooner Award, and was shortlisted for the Forward Prize. Her international honors include the Burda Prize for Eastern European authors (Germany), Crystal of Vilenica Prize (Slovenia), and fellowships from Sylt Foundation, Literary Colloquium Berlin, Gaude Polonia Scholarship in Warsaw, Literarisches Haus Graz Fellowship in Austria, and Alice Yard Artist Residency in Port of Spain, Trinidad. Mort teaches at Cornell University and writes in English and Belarusian. She translates between English, Belarusian, Russian, Ukrainian, and Polish. She has received the Gulf Coast Prize in Translation and the National Endowment for the Arts grant in translation for her work on Polina Barskova’s book of selected poems “Air Raid.” Her translation, together with Hanif Abdurraqib, of “Motherfield: Poetry and Belarusian Protest Diary” by Julia Cimafiejeva, came out in 2022 from Deep Vellum Press and was longlisted for the PEN Translation Prize.

Mort will be reading her poetry in the Art Exhibit Room. This event is free and open to the public.