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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05/01/20 Every Vision Quest

May 04, 2020 / Nikita Nelin

They were always marching.

Don’t tell me tomorrow

we’ll wake up

on our low thread sheets

though freshly laundered,

grill a piece of toast,

and something’s going to be different.

A half-baked sage

told me this was going to be a learning planet,

and I wanted to rebel too.

It’s not that I won’t

throw my hat into the ring

and see what it feels like to die a little

for a paper revolution,

but don’t dangle heaven as my appetite.

The ship’s too big now.

You cut out a wing,

we all go.

I’m not voting against it,

I just can’t stop dreaming of consequences.

Every action is a loan,

against another wayward soul

which began its vision quest with a belly

full of good intentions

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