The Moon Knows No Boundary

Marguerite Andersen is a professor of French studies at the University
of Guelph.

The poems in The Moon Knows No Boundary evoke the 20th-century
experience—beginning with the Russian Revolution—of civil chaos,
war, and the ensuing displacement of families and individuals. Names of
countries and cities form a musical leitmotif throughout the book, with
generations of one family travelling throughout the world, creating a
“Russian Diaspora” of extraordinary strength. Members of this family
sometimes meet, in reality and also only in thought, in order to
celebrate their links. Many are born stateless: “Not all are born with
the tags of nations / hanging bloody from umbilical cords.”

The Moon Knows No Boundary is at once political and personal. On the
last page, the poet questions her right to remain so deeply personal:
“Dubious poet. hugging your private life … / at a time like this!”
Yet the lives of the displaced must be kept alive, and what better
repository than the poet’s memory?