Anzhelina Polonskaya was born in Malakhovka, a small town near Moscow. She began to write poems seriously at the age of eighteen. At that time she was a professional ice-show skater. Between 1995 and 1997 she lived in Latin America, working as an ice dancer.  Her first book of verses Svetoch Moi Nebesny (My Heavenly Torch) appeared in 1993.  In 1998, the Moscow Writer’s Publishing House published her second book, entitled Verses.  Having left the ice show, Polonskaya decided to devote herself to literature. Her works were published in many of the broadest circulation Russian journals in this period. Since 1998, she has been a member of the Moscow Union of Writers.  In 1999, her book The Sky in a Private’s Eye was published. . In September 1999, this book was presented at the First International Festival of Poets in Moscow, and, in October 1999, at an international poetry festival/conference at Northwestern University (Chicago, USA). In 2002 her book Golos (A Voice) was published in Moscow, and in 2003, Polonskaya became a member of the Russian PEN-centre.  In 2004 an English version of her book, entitled "A Voice," appeared in the acclaimed “Writings from an Unbound Europe” series at Northwestern University Press.  This book was shortlisted for the 2005 Corneliu  Popescu Prize for European Poetry in Translation.  Between 2006 and the present Polonskaya has had the opportunity to participate in a number of prestigious writing residencies including those of the Cove Park Scottish Arts Council, the Hawthornden International Retreat for Writers, the MacDowell Colony, the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center, and the Villa Strauli in Zurich.  During this period she has published translations in many of the leading world poetry journals, including World Literature Today, Poetry Review, Ameircan Poetry Review, and International Poetry Review.  In October 2011 the “Oratorio-Requiem” Kursk, whose libretto consists of ten of Polonskaya’s poems will debut at the Melbourne Festival.  In 2012 a bilingual edition of her newer poems will be published by Zephyr Press under the title Paul Klee’s Boat.