Mosquito

Published in 1911, and then expanded and republished in 1922, Mosquito consists of 36 poems ranging in lengths from six lines to over one hundred and fifty.  It contains Akhmet Baitursynov’s most overtly political poems, aimed at the yet-to-exist Kazakh nation: to his people, to his kin, and to the many future sons and daughters of Kazakhstan. His intentions with the collection are clear, as we see in the opening lines of the poem “Author’s Note”: to buzz around the sleeping Kazakh populace in hopes of awakening them with a rallying cry.