Nikita Nelin

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Nikita Nelin was born in Moscow, Russia and immigrated to the U.S in 1989. He has lived in Austria and Italy, and has traveled the U.S extensively. He received the Sean O’Faolain prize for short fiction, the Summer Literary Seminars prize for nonfiction, and the Dogwood Literary Prize in Nonfiction, as well as being chosen as a finalist for the Restless Books Immigrant prize and the Dzanc Books prize. His work has been published in print and online. Nikita has conducted research through the Harriman Institute as well as translation through Yale Press, and has written on the convergence between fringe and at-large cultural trends for the Hannah Arendt Center. He holds an MFA in fiction from Brooklyn College, is a 2019 Associate Fellow at The Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and the Humanities, and is a member of the Southern Experience Collective.

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04/12/20 What’s Your Name

April 12, 2020 / Nikita Nelin

I wait my turn,

I submit my report,

I sign up for cleaning duty,

and you give me a name.

And yet,

even this feels like theater

as I perform an assigned role

the world clearly needs

without disclosing its purpose or reasons,

as you usher in the next recruit.

I’d like to meet as strangers again

with all the roads before us,

unmanageable,

deliberating at the foot of every path

as foreigners to strategy,

believing only in the wind

because it’s just visiting,

indifferent to prayer and other expectations,

requires no greetings,

remains unconquerable,

performs no name to deceive us

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