Sovetica

‘A warren of interpretative rabbit-holes one could go down, reading and rereading this excellent book: the tower-block appearance of the columns of text on the page, the decision Clark has made to organise her words spatially; the ways in which that approach mirrors the book’s concentration on the physicality of her husband’s childhood (there are photos included throughout as well, which also add to the book’s insistence on the concrete). But that’s for later exegetes. In the meantime, it’s enough to simply enjoy Sovetica’s unrivalled recreation of the thinginess of Soviet life. Give thanks both for and to Andrei’s powers of recall, and Clark’s entirely sympathetic transcription of these memories: so specific; so indicative.’ – James Womack, PN Review

‘Through its focus on food, clothes, and domestic life, Caroline Clark’s Sovetica masterfully transforms stories from her husband’s childhood and teenage experience in late Soviet Russia into fascinating poems that take us on a behind-the-scenes journey to the last years of state socialism.’ – Alexey Golubev, author of The Things of Life: Materiality in Late Soviet Russia

‘It’s a bold and unique undertaking, and one that provides highly personal insights into the social history of the last days of the USSR … It all makes for a fascinating and endlessly satisfying read.’ – Jeremy Page, The Frogmore Papers

‘Caroline Clark makes it so I can smell it, not least because the voice is so attractive and artless-seeming. Something universal about how we are in school, too, whether in Russia or in Rotherham: the bad haircuts (I loved the haircut poems), the jackets, the little attempts to make ourselves look cool … I was moved, in several directions: inwards, outwards, backwards in time and into my present.’ – Patrick McGuinness