'Aliens from Earth': Biosemiotic Non-human Figures in Anna Glazova’s Poetr

• In Event: Ecocritical Imaginations in Contemporary Russian and Polish Poetry

Abstract

Anna Glazova is a poet, scholar, and translator from Russia, now based in Hamburg. Her writing frequently foregrounds animals, plants, and natural phenomena, exploring the capacity of poetic form to engage with non-human Others. In this paper, I use a biosemiotic approach to demonstrate how Glazova extends meaning-making and creativity beyond the human realm, portraying life itself as organized through sign processes. Her poetic heroine is attuned to these processes—ranging from cephalopod inking to the life cycle of a miller moth—revealing how non-human beings interpret environmental cues and transmit meanings. This perspective challenges the boundary between nature and culture, inviting readers into transformative, risky encounters with the world. Poetry becomes a tool for overcoming our sensory limitations and anthropomorphizing tendencies, emerging as a site of interspecies co-creation aligned with planetary rhythms.

Author

• Alexandra Tkacheva, U of Michigan