Review of Alla Vilnyanskaya's Void
Definitions of “void” include “the quality or state of being without something”; “a feeling of want or hollowness;” and, for the verb form, “nullify, annul.” It’s possible that poet Alla Vilnyanskaya had all these definitions in mind with the title of her recent book, Void.
The debut collection of the Ukranian-American Vilnyanskaya, Void tackles sobering themes, from conflicted relationships and violence against women to the fragility of life itself. Vilnyanskaya is unsentimental in her presentation; indeed, one perceives from her a sort of distance, a detachment. Yet her poems can stir and disturb, fascinate and haunt.
I’ll admit to finding Vilnyanskaya’s poems challenging. They take unexpected twists and turns, sometimes achieving a stream-of-consciousness quality. As a reader, one has the sense of peering through a hazy window; you have to work to untangle many of the poems’ intended meanings. But what’s clear are the poet’s intellect and wit, which shine through her work’s complex layers.
Vilnyanskaya announces the gravity of her content with her opening poem, “#2666,” which describes, in part, a woman’s murder and sodomy. “A numb sensation takes over/Nothing at the bottom of evil,” she concludes. The poem’s title adds to the sense that the murdered woman is an anonymous one among many.
The opening poem also introduces one of the book’s themes: the treatment of women. Rape is a recurring topic. In the prose poem “Pink,” Vilnyanskaya says,
I said no and it sounded like “Yes. Yes. Yes. Please take me, right
here. In fact, I would prefer it if we didn’t wear any clothing.” There
is a certain way that after a rape the sound of a woman’s voice
changes. She becomes an angel.
But some of the aggression toward women described in this collection is more subtle. The prose poem “Tennis Ball” includes the lines, “I was locked in a basement and forced to take the blame/for isolating myself. Women’s emotions are fraudulent.” Here, Vilnyanskaya suggests that women are made to internalize guilt for wrongs committed against them, and that their feelings—perhaps their objections—are invalid.
These various offenses against women are committed amid a troubled landscape, in which relationships are fraught. “Anniversary Gift” begins with “It’s like he is happy for me/He just loves me” and changes course, until he is “Sleeping alone/next to some new girl.” The poem concludes:
You shouldn’t have said five years.
You should have said tomorrow, or fifty.
Try saying tomorrow.
These lines seem to speak to the ultimate fragility and untrustworthiness of romantic partnerships. In “Cinderella: Master Class, Practicing on the Violin,” this fragility is echoed everywhere:
It takes special skill
to discern
that almost anything
may be ruined.
Indeed, in the world Vilnyanskaya describes, life itself is exceedingly fragile. She gives a nod to the effort required to sustain anything alive in “Homerun”:
I’ve always hated
plastic flowers,
but as I grow older
I realize that one
does not always
have the time
or patience
to sustain
a living thing
One of Vilnyanskaya’s skills is showing us just a glimpse of something and managing to imbue that glimpse with inordinate power and story. Perhaps the best example of this minimalism comes in the four-line poem “Encounter,” one of my favorites of the collection:
A boy bounces
a tennis ball in the street
he sees a car
turning
It took a few readings of this understated poem for it to reach its full impact, perhaps because it leaves so much for me, as the reader, to fill in. But once that happened and the poem sank in, it produced a haunting effect. I feel caught in the moment with the boy, poised on the edge of disaster.
This poem provides but one example of Vilnyanskaya’s sometimes-unsettling prowess. Anyone looking for a complex work that explores gender violence, the mutability of relationships and life, and much more might do well to enter Void.
This 96-page book ends with several pages of poems by Anastasia Afanas’eva in translation from Russian.
Abbey J. Porter writes poetry and memoir about people, relationships, and life struggles. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Queens University of Charlotte, an MA in liberal studies from Villanova University, and a BA in English from Gettysburg College. Abbey works in communications and lives in Cheltenham, Pa., with her two dogs.