"Poetry went places/Where there isn’t place for poetry."

April 23, 2022 1:38 AM

Words for War: New Poems from Ukraine is a 2017 anthology edited by Oksana Maksymchuk and Max Rosochinsky of Ukrainian poetry by sixteen poets, for example Oksana Lutsyshyna, Serhiy Zhadan, Kateryna Kalytko, Vasyl Holoborodko, Lyudmyla Khersonska, Yuri Izdryk and Lyuba Yakimchuk. There is a preface by the editors, an introduction by Ilya Kaminsky and an afterword by Polina Barskova, two of the roughly thirty translators involved. There are also glossaries of terms and places, as well as video readings of several poems. You can purchase the book from various websites or recommend that your library order a copy. The title of the thread is from Not a Poem in Forty Days by Borys Humenyuk
posted by Kattullus (3 comments total)

When a country of — overall — nice people
turns — slowly — fascist,
nice people do not notice this transformation all at once.
as when a person we know intimately
goes, next to us, through
an imperceptible process of aging...

--Lyudmila Khersonska, transl. Valzhyna Mort.

Many thanks for posting about this Katullus - I've ordered a copy of the book.
posted by misteraitch at 7:05 AM on April 23, 2022 [1 favorite]

"...It’s very important for us to talk about ourselves during the war.
We cannot stop talking about ourselves during the war.
It’s impossible to be quiet about ourselves."

-Serhiy Zhadan.
posted by clavdivs at 6:16 PM on April 23, 2022 [2 favorites]

I came in to call out Serhiy Zhadan's work. I heard a performance of his at the Bowery Poetry Club in the early 2000's and this one has stuck with me for ages: it's a gut punch in Ukrainian and in English.

ALCOHOL
by Serhiy Zhadan, 2002

The green river water
slows in warm bends
fish zeppelins
scatter the plankton
and tired bird catchers
attempt to catch
every word.

Hold on to
the brightly colored rags and scotch tape
that bind the slashed wrists
of these heroic times.
One day you will turn off this radio,
you'll get used to her,
to her breathing
and, dressed in your T-shirt,
she'll bring you water in the middle of the night.

On the terrace the left-over cups of tea
are filling up with rain water
and cigarette butts,
you and I share a cold
you and I share long conversations --
you don't notice the morning rain
you go to sleep late
and you wake up late
I write poems about how I love
this woman, and I invent
newer and newer words
to avoid
telling her.

posted by larthegreat at 12:50 AM on April 25, 2022 [3 favorites]