Toska derives its title from the Russian word which denotes a melancholic longing without a singular cause longing for a better world than the latestage capitalist hell we live in.ampamp160Toska explores a sense of rootlessness and a sort of antinationalism how the pervasive sense of being an immigrant or ampamp34in but not ofampamp34 a place never quite dissipates particularly amid the dissonance and alienation felt within U.S. culture gunning towards a vision of imperialist capitalist whitesupremacist hegemony.ampamp160These poems come to the weary conclusion time and time again that sexual liberalismliberation and hedonism are only one sort of revelation that this sort of openness and exploration isnt enough to save anyone from despair or the existentially weary feeling of toska from which the title takes its name. But desire is not just Eros ampamp8212 the poems carry a strong desire for a different world for everyone.