Where Things Start

The title of this beautiful collection is so apt: in these poems, we indeed experience "the pleasure of not knowing what comes next", which is one of the great pleasures poetry can give. In other words, we are constantly surprised by where these poems go: they will move from beautiful and close observation of the natural world; to a childhood memory of Soviet Russia; to meditations on scientific phenomena; to the experience of love, sexuality, parenthood, and day to day life in the city. This is Ostashevsky's world: rich, delightful, analytical, deeply felt. The poet brings the entirety of her self into her work, the entirety of a life being lived. She transforms its complexities into surprising pleasures. Her implicit questions to us: should a poem be any less mysterious than life itself? Isn't there great pleasure to be had in not knowing what comes next?-Geoffrey Nutter, author of Cities of Dawn