The debate about the nature of essayism can be ended with a nod towards poetry. In Maria Vatutina’s selection, in any case, poems and non-verses, lyrics and thinking merged like the personal and family history of a newborn, who is brought, like a blessing, into every house that has seen. “Baba Manya sews overcoats / so that the tires can hang / on soldiers, and so / the road was overcome,” “I rushed forward, grabbed my granddaughter - my mother - without saying a word, I walked ahead of the family with a precious burden in my arms. Baba Manya. I was named after her Maria.”