Belarusian poet writing in Russian. Born in Minsk in 1963. An architect by education. The author of 17 books of poetry. Head of the literary and publishing project "Novye Mekhi" ("New Wineskins"), publisher of the almanac and poetry series "Minsk School". Member of the Belarusian PEN Center and the Union of Belarusian Writers. Dmitri is a Laureate of the Norwegian Authors' Union's Freedom of Speech Award (2020), Ciampi – Valigie Rosse Prize Winner 2020 (Italy) and a laureate of the Vaclav Havel Library Foundation's Disturbing the Peace Award for a Courageous Writer at Risk (2021). Laureate of the Swedish PEN's Tucholsky Award (2021). Laureate of the Belorussian PEN's Ales Adamovich Award (2021). His poems have been translated into English, Belarusian, Georgian, Italian, Lithuanian, German, Polish, Ukrainian, French, Swedish, Czech, Estonian and other languages.

* * *

not revolutionaries

my wife and I

are nonpartisan and unarmed

a dragon made his home inside our home

armor-clad and flesh-eating

he prefers our children

already slaughtered and skinned like

dogs for dinner

we are sick and tired of hiding our children

we’ve used up all our secret corners

tell us what to do

you, peacelovers

you, dragonophiles

Translated from Russian by Valzhyna Mort