{"product_id":"a-crash-course-in-molotov-cocktails-9798986340197","title":"A Crash Course in Molotov Cocktails","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"We act like children with our dead,\" Halyna Kruk writes as she struggles to come to terms with the horror unfolding around her: \"confused, \/ as if none of us knew until now\/ how easy it is to die.\" In poem after devastating poem, Kruk confronts what we would prefer not to see: \"a person runs toward a bullet\/ with a wooden shield and a warm heart...\" Translated with the utmost of care by Amelia Glaser and Yulia Ilchuk, \u003cem\u003eA Crash Course in Molotov Cocktails \u003c\/em\u003eis a guidebook to the emotional combat in Ukraine. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThese stunning poems of witness by one of Ukraine's most revered poets are by turns breathless, philosophical, and visionary. In a dark recapitulation of evolution itself, Kruk writes: \"nothing predicted the arrival of humankind....\/ nothing predicted the arrival of the tank...\" Her taught, lean lines can turn epigrammatic: \"what will kill you will seduce you first,\" or they can strike you like Lomachenko's lightening jabs: \"flirt, Cheka agent, bitch.\" \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLeading readers into the world's darkest spaces, Kruk implies that the light of language can nevertheless afford some measure of protection. Naming serves as a shield, albeit a wooden one. The paradox is that after the bullets have been fired and the missiles landed, the wooden shield, the printed book, reconstitutes itself. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Arrowsmith Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50593801896210,"sku":"9798986340197","price":16.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_39ee8822-e003-446b-b538-8975371509ff.jpg?v=1732122457","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/a-crash-course-in-molotov-cocktails-9798986340197","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}