Tatiana Krasilnikova's 'Heracleocene' poem

A poem by Tatiana Krasilnikova, titled 'Heracleocene,' has been translated into English by Venya Gushchin. The translation was published by Words Without Borders in August 2026. The work uses the invasive Sosnovsky's hogweed plant as a central metaphor.

Krasilnikova recounts a childhood memory of a dangerous plant and a contradictory textbook. She and her friends were told a story about children who burned their eyes after playing with a plant stalk as a telescope. That same year, her Russian language textbook contained a short text called 'Hogweed' that praised the plant's health properties. The textbook suggested making a pipe from its stalk and then eating it, describing hogweed as 'crunchy like a cucumber.' Krasilnikova notes she could not find this text in 2024 but remembers being disturbed by it, unaware at the time that safer species like Siberian hogweed existed.

The Hogweed's History

The poem's focus is Sosnovsky's hogweed. This species was described in the 1940s and named by botanist Ida Mandenova after her teacher. It was taken from its native ecosystem in the Caucasus mountains and transplanted for agrobiological experimentation. The goal was to use it as silage to combat post-war famine, feeding cattle that would then feed humans. However, the plant escaped cultivation.

Krasilnikova describes the hogweed as entering 'a cruel collaboration with the sun,' discovering a latent ability to burn human mucus membranes, skin, and tongues. She reflects on how, after being harmless in its native region, it began destroying ecosystems and conquering territories. She contrasts this with coral reefs bleaching and vanishing due to climate change, while the hogweed thrives, 'blooming in languid umbrellas.'

A Symbol of Failed Systems

The author states the plant has 'forever become a flowerhead of coloniality, militarism, scientific ignorance, patriarchy, toxicity, and a monotony of form.' She decided to imagine a future era where hogweed conquers everything, naming this epoch the 'Heracleocene' or 'hogweedcene.' Despite this bleak vision, Krasilnikova emphasizes she decided not to give up on hope, calling hope 'the most important aspect of this poem.' She has been looking for hope 'in my search for this language.'

The poem itself, presented in the source, is a fragmented exploration of these themes. It references lessons from under authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, from under actor-network theory and oil arteries. One line, in parentheses, states 'ceci n’est pas une pipeline,' echoing Magritte's famous painting. It mentions 'the putrid poison of organic languages' and garbage.

A contrasting image is offered: 'a handful of soil / on a plot of land / on this earth / unteaches the transport of speech.' The poem concludes with vivid, dangerous imagery of childhood, linking back to the opening anecdote. 'children look at the cloud through a telescope / a telescope coated in furanocoumarins' it warns, with furanocoumarins being the toxic compounds in hogweed. It ends with 'children play with a bruise in the mouth / with a fire on the tongue.'

The translation copyright is held by Venya Gushchin as of 2026.