Poetry in Motion: Misha Solomon + My Great-Grandfather Danced Ballet
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My Great-Grandfather Danced Ballet
Two timelines intersect, weaving an alternate reality of queer ancestors, half-truths, domesticity, and desire in spite of past and present persecution.
What if the queer ancestor you always wondered about had really existed – and could speak to you across all time? When there’s only one document to be found in the archive, can our misheard or half-remembered family stories be enough? My Great-Grandfather Danced Ballet is a daring, erotic, and humorous exploration of queer longing and Jewish possibility at the turn of two centuries. In a captivating series of narrative poems, Misha Solomon entwines an alternate memoir of his great-grandfather in pre-Holocaust Romania with a contemporary gay life in Montreal. With profound vision, voice, and craft, Solomon sets a new and powerful precedent for speculative poetic histories, allowing intimacy to find a way through memories real, imagined, and desired.
Misha Solomon being a deeply hilarious introspective smart storyteller is dreaming into his ancestry to create this excellent collection that troubles the want for queer ancestry for children for desire for peace purpose and resolution in ones domestic life Solomons voice is all his own These climatic poems sing with great rhythm and wit across an array of forms where you can feel Solomon having great fun as a poet Armed with a fresh voice full of play wonder profanity and lush storyMy Great Grandfather Danced Balletis a stunning debut from your new favorite poetDanez Smith author ofBluff Poems
The poems of Misha SolomonsMy GreatGrandfather Danced Ballettranscend the boundaries of and lacunae within a familial lineage to present us with a relentlessly inventive and endearing experience of queer connection We are introduced to Ernest a figure based on Solomons own grandfather who danced ballet in preHolocaust Romania as he navigates his familys emigration to Montreal while writing letters to his former lover Rubin Their epistolary exchange is both tender and electric quotidian and erotic and demonstrates Solomons exceptional poetic range Complementary poems also explore the authors queer mundanity and desire to recover from the gaps of Jewish diasporic experience and intergenerational bond This work is an introduction to a powerful new voice in Canadian poetryLiz Howard author ofLetters in a Bruised Cosmos
The conversational meets the confessional in Misha SolomonsMy GreatGrandfather Danced Balleta formally daring stunningly tender and frequently hilarious exploration of queerness Jewishness domestic intimacy and ancestral lineage Moving in time and place from presentday Montreal to New York to the eponymous ballet dancers native Romania in the early 20th century this genrebending polyphonic collection interweaves stories and lives with verve and virtuosity These are poems of queer joy as much as they are of longing and desire poems that interrogate personal subjectivity and the narratives we inherit A truly astonishing and unforgettable debutLisa Richter author ofSublunary
When I read a book I try to keep my phone far away but as I read Misha Solomons beautiful debut it occurred to me that there could be a third place not quite phone and not quite book deserving my attention and that Solomon was its ferryman A hilarious and harrowing collection the whole way throughBen Ladouceur author ofI Remember Lights
The poems of Misha SolomonsMy GreatGrandfather Danced Ballettranscend the boundaries of and lacunae within a familial lineage to present us with a relentlessly inventive and endearing experience of queer connection We are introduced to Ernest a figure based on Solomons own grandfather who danced ballet in preHolocaust Romania as he navigates his familys emigration to Montreal while writing letters to his former lover Rubin Their epistolary exchange is both tender and electric quotidian and erotic and demonstrates Solomons exceptional poetic range Complementary poems also explore the authors queer mundanity and desire to recover from the gaps of Jewish diasporic experience and intergenerational bond This work is an introduction to a powerful new voice in Canadian poetryLiz Howard author ofLetters in a Bruised Cosmos
The conversational meets the confessional in Misha SolomonsMy GreatGrandfather Danced Balleta formally daring stunningly tender and frequently hilarious exploration of queerness Jewishness domestic intimacy and ancestral lineage Moving in time and place from presentday Montreal to New York to the eponymous ballet dancers native Romania in the early 20th century this genrebending polyphonic collection interweaves stories and lives with verve and virtuosity These are poems of queer joy as much as they are of longing and desire poems that interrogate personal subjectivity and the narratives we inherit A truly astonishing and unforgettable debutLisa Richter author ofSublunary
When I read a book I try to keep my phone far away but as I read Misha Solomons beautiful debut it occurred to me that there could be a third place not quite phone and not quite book deserving my attention and that Solomon was its ferryman A hilarious and harrowing collection the whole way throughBen Ladouceur author ofI Remember Lights
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Details
Dimensions:
96 Pages
8.5in * 5.75in * 0in
10gr
Published:
February 17, 2026
Publisher:
ISBN:
9781771316675
Language:
eng
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