Fifty Drops of Blood

by Dmitri Prigov, Christopher Mattison

The first edition of Dmitry Aleksandrovich Prigov’s 50 Drops of Blood was published in Moscow in 1993, in a volume that also contained his series “In the Sense of” and nearly three dozen sketches linked to the two discrete poetic cycles. This series is composed of 44 free verse poems ranging from four to seven lines that each contain some iteration of the phrase “drop of blood." The inherently absorbent medium of the book form presents readers with snapshots of Prigov’s conceptual roadmap of Russian history, socio-political machinations and, as is often the case with his writing, language considering language. Originally trained as a sculptor at the Stroganov Institute, Prigov’s work in the written word—“Texts” (as he referred to them)—involved constructing objects from language while simultaneously dismantling the stifling and toxic ideologies of the Soviet state.

Genres: Poetry

95 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Dmitri Aleksandrovich Prigov (Russian: Дмитрий Александрович Пригов) was a Russian dissident writer and artist.

He was a prolific poet having written nearly 36,000 poems.

Reviews

[Carrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

a lot of blood.