Nikita Nelin

Story Weaver

Fiction.

Nonfiction..

Immersive Journalism…

Narrative Guide….

The Obligatory Bio in the 3rd-person:

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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03/19/20 STA

There’s a tumbleweed

I’d been wanting to tell you about

for roughly half this hunt.

It’s not fiscally responsible

or progressive;

it just keep turning

real fast and sly-like

but in the same place.

It don’t have too much

of a personality,

but,

bless the road,

it’s little nowhere dance

be getting interesting.

I think there a code somewhere in there,

you know?

Like a,

a radio message from another place,

beyond where the postman come,

right here

to me.

No,

I don’t wanna

Put down the shiney,

its sweet evanescence make me wanna come home.

No need for your charity either,

I got this magic tumbleweed.

It tell me things

you

don’t

know.

It say

‘We be fine if we stay on the road together.’

Who care where the message come from?

Hey, put that riffle down,

That there is just the messenger,

Who come to sing me a song

"Fantasy, abandoned by reason, produces impossible monsters; united with it, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of marvels." 
                                                                                     Goya