Kinship

“Maxim D. Shrayer's new collection radiates the sad airy warmth of a home lost but never forgotten. There is a gentle, inviting glow to the poems, though the light they shed often lands on tragedy. With Kinship, Shrayer has expanded his place in the pantheon of émigré poets.”
    -Boris Dralyuk, author of My Hollywood, poems and translator of Isaac Babel's Odessa Stories.

“In Kinship the poet Maxim D. Shrayer takes on our troubled times—including COVID-19, January 6th, the Russian invasion of Ukraine—as well as troubled past times, gracing these events with his honesty, sorrow, and multi-cultural perspective. Born in Moscow to a Jewish-Russian family, then immigrating to America, Shrayer comes to these moments with sensitivity and a unique eye. He sees bats at sunset as “ugly, soft, and fast/ like old snapshots of the Soviet past,” and understands, even lives, “how time can history backward.” One is wiser for reading these poems, and richer for their beautiful language.  “
-Elizabeth Poliner, author, What You Know in Your Hands, poems and As Close to Us as     Breathing, a novel