Dialogue Foundation Books
ISBN: 0692466363
December 4, 2015

 

EXCAVATING THE SKY

In his debut chapbook, Excavating the Sky, Konstantin Kulakov labors to relate the unitive spirituality of his Russian upbringing to the fragmentation of a market-driven US society. Whether it is his past Muslim-Christian relationship, his dance with natural science, or his struggle to expose continued US raciality, Kulakov’s poetry seeks the contradictions in everything, "mixing words to bring-out sparks." At once lyrical and visionary, personal and political, what emerges is a complex, honest language that resists the exclusionary tendencies of the 21st century and offers subtle flashes of possibility. Throughout, there is breaking, but there is also unfolding—


Drawings: Adina-Larisa Sufana


Praise for Excavating the Sky

“[‘Keats by Glenomont Metro’] restricts itself to so few notes and picks them out one by one… the meditative mind bound to the world by fear, desire, and mortal knowledge." Brian Teare, author of Companion Grasses (Slate’s best poetry books of 2013)

"memories from his Russian youth and reflections on global religion… Kulakov is clearly eager to grapple with his own faith and with the faith of others…" Kirkus Reviews

“a voice to be reckoned with, in his prophetic stance, in the power of his language, and in his linkage of poetry with the life of faith... brave, bold poems, excruciatingly beautiful as they lay bare our predicament and direct our gaze toward what he labels “Reality." Jill Peláez Baumgaertner, The Christian Century

Excavating The Sky is an artistic gem… Konstantin Kulakov is a genuine poet – with a subtle intelligence and lyrical power…” Cornel West 

"[Excavating the Sky has] an unusual sensibility capable of bridging influences as unlikely as Mayakovsky and the Bible." David Rosenberg, co-author of the New York Times bestseller, The Book of J (with Harold Bloom) 

“reveals a fusion of traditions, an almost physical love for language that owes much to the prosody of his mother tongue in Russia... transcendent and profound (translated from Spanish)” Carlos Izquierdo, author of Cuaderno de instantes (Melibea)

“…blends past and present in its own imaginative vision…[Excavating the Sky] exhibits genuine tolerance and an openness to experience…striking and beautiful.” Stephen Bronner, author of Modernism at the Barricades : Aesthetics, Politics, Utopia and Critical Theory: A Very Short Introduction