The flat land

by Marina Kazakova

The flat land,

once home

to coal miners,

potato eaters,

the great Flemish masters,

is swiftly losing its chassis -

its temperate climate,

broad shoulders and broad mind…

Flat voices

over-pronounce

the Flemish sounds,

over-use the dialects

in the presence of exiles,

white squatters

are getting even whiter,

ex-punks build fences

to protect the witlof gardens

from the invasion

of lowbrow middle east folk.

The flat wet land

is good for crops,

spreading the seeds,

cycling or ropewalking with sticks

along the walls

of graffiti,

stating precisely but temperately

“Dear Refuges, go home. Please.”

* * * * *

Marina Kazakova (b. Gorky, 1983) is a writer, poet and audio-visual artist in Belgium. Published internationally in magazines and journals (Three Rooms Press' Maintenant, AntiNarrative Journal, Crannog), Marina is a frequent performer. She has been shortlisted at different poetry/film-poetry competitions and was awarded various prizes. She is author of verse novel Tishe...Piano, the film adaptation of which was shortlisted for International Short Film Festival Leuven 2013, Miami Indie Wise Festival 2018, XpoNorth Festival 2018, and got ‘The Best Narrative Short’ Award at the International Film Festival behalf Savva Morozov in Moscow in 2015. Her literature works deal to a large degree with confrontation with the past and explore the challenges posed both by memory and grief. In addition to poetry, Marina has written essays and articles for such publications as The Word Magazine (Brussels), Culturetrip. com, Seanema.eu. Marina holds a Master in Public Relations and in Transmedia. Currently, she is Communications Officer at ‘Victim Support Europe’(Brussels) and working on her practice-based PhD in Arts “Lyric Film-Poem. A research on how the unique characteristics of lyric poetry can be expressed in film” at Luca School of Arts (KULeuven).