30 Days of Ukrainian Poetry - Day 30 - "Ars Poetica II,1"

Day 30, and what a journey it has been! Over the past month, the days have rapidly begun getting shorter, and the hot humid thunderstorms of summer have given way to crisper and mellower weather that hints at autumn. If we include today's post, we have read 30 poems and been introduced to 19 individuals from several generations of Ukrainian poets. Of those 19, a number were imprisoned or even killed for their work. Poetry is important everywhere, of course, but especially here in Ukraine. That is why our final two poems - 29 and 30 - are about poetry itself.

Time to meet this project's final poet: Bohdan-Igor Antonych. He grew up in the early 1900s in a mountainous region that spans parts of Poland, Slovakia, and Ukraine's Zakarpattia Oblast. He studied in Lviv, where he was active in poetry, music, and the visual arts, and was very prolific given his short life, prematurely cut off by appendicitis and pneumonia at the age of 28. He came of age shortly after Ukraine became part of the Soviet Union, and his poetry was therefore banned and hardly known by anyone until interest in it resurfaced with the dissident-intellectual movement of the 1960s, which we have heard much about through delving into the works of poets like Vasyl Symonenko, Lina Kostenko, and Vasyl Stus. Lucky for us, much of Bohdan-Igor's work has been translated into English. It reminds me quite a lot of one of my favorite poets, Hafiz, because of its high-flying and joyous spiritual nature.

Without further ado, our final poem of  30 Days of Ukrainian Poetry: 

ARS POETICA II, 1

Богдан Ігор Антонич

Я звичайний піїта,
кожний мене захоплює день.
Не розумію світа,
не розумію власних пісень.

Пити захват до краю…
Голос безжурний, немов цвіркуна,
От так собі співаю,
Тільки дзвенить на горах луна.

Захоплення початок,
релігії й сонетів;
захоплення нам родить
апостолів і поетів.

Не вмію писати віршів,
сміюся з правил і вимог.
Для мене поетику
складає сам Бог.

ARS POETICA II, 1

Bohdan-Igor Antonych 

Translated by Michael M. Naydan

I am an ordinary poet,
    each day fascinates me
    I do not understand the world, 
    I do not understand my own songs.

To drink ecstasy to the brim... 
    A carefree voice like a cricket
    this is the way I sing, 
    with just the echo still ringing in the mountains

The beginning of rapture, 
     of religion and sonnets;
     rapture gives birth to our apostles and poets

I do not know how to write poems, 
     I scoff at the rules and standards.
     For me it is God Himself
     who forms my poetics 

In 2009, in honor of the 100th anniversary of Bohdan-Ihor Antonych's birthday, there was a special performance put on in the Lviv Opera House that included music, dance, and readings of his poetry. Unfortunately the video footage of this event is rather poor, but it must have been amazing in person!

And that's a wrap! A huge thank you to everyone who has followed this project and sent encouragement. Through this dive into Ukrainian poetry, I've gotten much more meaning from the buildings and monuments that surround me. Now when I hear a name crop up on a walking tour, I often know something about the work and life of the person who has been mentioned.

I will be doing some thinking on how to continue exploring Ukrainian language and culture on this blog throughout the rest of my service - perhaps a poem of the month, or perhaps another poetry challenge come wintertime when I can finally enjoy all those verses about snow. I do also have some more material on contemporary Ukrainian music in the works, so stay tuned! Until then, it's time to return once again to more traditional modes of studying the language. After all the work that went into this month of blogging, I'm actually relieved at the idea of just doing tedious grammar exercises for a while!




The contents of this blog reflect my personal views and experiences only and are not indicative of the views of the Peace Corps or any other entity. 

30 Days of Ukrainian Poetry - Day 29 - "We're silent, poetry and I"

Here we are on this last day of August, which falls ever-so-perfectly on a Friday, and I am a day behind. No matter, it means we will have a two-poem day today to finish off this project, 30 Days of Ukrainian Poetry.

First - Day 29, which is happening on Day 30, which is happening on the 31st day of the month. Краще так, ніж ніяк. Both Day 29 and Day 30 are devoted to poems about poetry; about how and why people write poetry. It seems only fitting.

We started this poetry journey with Lina Kostenko, and it is to her we turn once again for this penultimate poem of the month. I hope to perhaps dive into some of her prose works now that I have finished my first major foray into Ukrainian literature. For those who wish to find her work in English, here is a bibliography of translations. You can find some collections on Amazon if you are willing to brave the occasional notices of "unavailable" or "out of print".

Lina Kostenko recently turned 88, and is still writing and teaching.

Ми мовчимо – поезія і я

Ліна Кстоенко 

Ми мовчимо — поезія і я.
Ми одна одній дивимось у вічі.
Вона не знає, як моє ім’я,—
мене немає в нашому сторіччі.

Я не зійшла, посіяна в бетон.
Не прийнялась, морозами прибита.
Я недоцільна — наче камертон
у кулаці кошлатого бандита.

We are silent - poetry and I

Lina Kostenko

We are silent - poetry and I
We look one another in the face
She does not know my name, -
I am not in our century.

I stay put, planted in concrete.
I haven't moved, held fast by frosts.
I don't quite fit - like a tuning fork
in the fist of a shaggy bandit.

The contents of this blog reflect my personal views and experiences only, and are not indicative of the views of the Peace Corps or any other entity. I need to put this note on here or I get in trouble. 

30 Days of Ukrainian Poetry - Day 28 - "Another"

Day 28 brings us another contemporary Ukrainian poet, and interestingly, one who has mostly stayed near to his native town, Kalush, rather than making the pilgrimage to Kyiv like so many others.

Growing up in what were still Soviet times, Yuriy Izdryk naturally worked for a while at a factory as an engineer. However, he had also started writing poetry in his teens, first in Russian and then in Ukrainian. In the same year that I was born, 1989, he started the journal "Chetver" (Thursday), for which he soon found a collaborator, Yuriy Andrukhovych. The two Yuriys served as co-editors, and had about them a small team for the journal, which ran until 2008. They published works mostly affiliated with what is called the "Stanislavsky Phenomenon", a post-modernist movement based in the western city of Ivano-Frankivsk.

(Remember who Ivano-Frankisvk is named after? Check back to Day 17 for a reminder)

 Apparently, some critics thought that Yuriy Izdryk didn't exist, and was just a pseudonym for Yuriy Andrukhovych. Interesting that in today's poem, Yuriy Izdryk brings up the idea that you need others around to you testify that you are real - that you exist.

Інший

Юрій Іздрик

людина сама нічого не може
людині завжди потрібен інший
на кого можна себе помножити
для кого варто писати вірші
з ким можна разом долати відчай
чи радість ділити не ризикуючи
хто може в будь-яку мить засвідчити
що ти – реальний що ти – існуєш
людина ж бо в себе не надто вірить
все свідка для себе шукає якогось
нема людини – спіймає звіра
не зловить звіра – віднайде бога
не знайде бога – візьме люстерко
та навіть там себе не впізнає
бо в сóбі бачить обличчя смерті
й не розуміє що смерті немає..
людина сама нічого не може –
ні народитись ні вмерти тихо
побудь же іншим мені мій боже
постій поблизу…
помовч…
подихай…

Another

Yuriy Izdryk

a person alone cannot do anything
a person always needs another
in whom they can multiply themselves
for whom it's worth writing verses
with whom they can together overcome despair
or share joy without risking
who can in any instant testify
that you are real - that you exist
a person does not much believe in themselves
they all look for a witness to their being
if there's not another person - catch a creature
not catching a creature, find God
not finding God - grab a mirror
and even there you won't recognize yourself
for in yourself you see the face of death
and you don't realize that death doesn't exist
a person alone cannot do anything
cannot be born, cannot quietly die
be to me, o God, that other
stand near me
quiet
and breathe 

I unfortunately got the title wrong in the video, as I was given this poem on a printout that included the text but no title. I figured it, like many poems with no given title, just used the first line as its name - but then when I searched for this poem online, I found out that there is, indeed, a title, and I like it quite a lot.

I haven't been able to locate any other readings of today's poem, but with Yuriy being a contemporary and living poet, there are plenty of videos of him reading his own verses. The one below is called, "This Time", and even though many of my friends won't understand the words, it's worth it to see the face and hear the voice of today's poet.

The content of this blog expresses my views alone and not those of the Peace Corps or any other entity. 

30 Days of Ukrainian Poetry - Day 27 - "Immigrant Zonh"

Day 27 and it's time to get back to that "bad boy" of contemporary Ukrainian poetry, Serhiy Zhadan. (The guy's been part of a band called "Dogs in Space", since updated to "Zhadan and the Dogs", he definitely deserves more than one entry). Quite a lot of his poetry has been translated into English, and I recommend finding it, but I keep getting drawn to some of his verses that haven't yet gotten that kind of attention.

That's our poet  - singing "I'm not an adherent of aesthetics, I'm a rock musician". 

Reading Zhadan's work is very different than reading earlier Ukrainian poetry, especially since so much of the earlier poetry I've found is very specifically about Ukraine. In contrast, his stuff is worldly, modern while still deeply set in place and time. He writes about other countries and foreign events, about booze and violence, about love; he writes kids' poems about cats (of course). He sometimes titles his poems in Ukrainianized English (when people write out English words with the Ukrainian alphabet - something surprisingly common). I was highly tempted to pick one with the title (written in Cyrillic with a Ukrainian accent): "New York - Fucking City".

But here we go with a poem whose title I can't even quite make sense of: "Immigrant Zonh". Does it mean Immigrant Zone? Immigrant Song, perhaps? A number of years after Serhiy wrote this poem, he did publish an essay called Immigrant Song, so maybe it's the latter. Him being a musician, maybe he took inspiration from Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song." But phonetically, it sounds like zone... maybe it is some reference I don't recognize. Anyway, this poem is included in Serhiy Zhadan's 2001 collection "Ballads of War and Reconstruction", and it hits hard.

імміґрант зонг

Сергій Жадан

немає нічого тривалішого за ці речі 
немає нічого ріднішого за ці муки 
на виїзді з міста сніг ляже на плечі 
торкнувшись йому лиця наче жіночі руки

дорогою перегоном котиться поїзд на захід 
плачуть губні гармонії з адресами сірниками 
плач повоєнна європо хай будуть тобі мов закид 
сумні чоловічі бари набиті мандрівниками

бо він уже не повернеться навіть коли захоче 
вода усіх океанів йому вимиває очі 
бо він не приїде назад і що з нього можна взяти 
серед блаженної пам’яті червоних п’ятдесятих

окрім готичних контурів завчених ним абеток 
окрім гранат і листівок окрім птахів таблеток 
пам’ять про нього дбає пам’ять рахує лічить 
в одну й ту саму ріку снаряд не влучає двічі

вулиця затихає здригаються пальці посуд 
смирення втрапляє в тіло мов пробиває вістрям 
коли приходить смерть коли зостається осад 
коли останнє ім’я видихуєш разом з повітрям

бо смерть наче білий цукор обліплює зуби ясна 
зі смертю приходить терпіння спускається і дається 
і починається тиша тиша раптова вчасна 
в якій не чути нічого навіть власного серця

Immigrant Zonh

Serhiy Zhadan

there is nothing that goes on longer than these things

nothing more deeply rooted than these miseries

on the way out of the city snow falls on his shoulders

touching his face like the hands of a woman

along the road, between stations the train rolls west

labial harmonies cry with addresses, matches
let this cry, o post-war Europe, be for you a reproach
sad men's bars packed with wanderers

because he will never return even when he wants to
the water of all the oceans washes his eyes
because he will not come back and what can be taken from him
among blissful memories of the red fifties

except the gothic conours of the alphabets he's assimilated
except grenades postcards except birds pills 
memory looks after him memory counts enumerates
the shell doesn't hit twice in the same river

the road fades fingers rattle the dishes
meekness enters the body as if piercing with a spike
when death comes when the dregs are left
when you last exhale your name together with air

because death like white sugar covers teeth and gums
with death comes patience it descends and is given
and the silence begins silence suddenly timely
in which there's nothing to hear not even your own heart

As you can probably tell, I have translated this poem literally rather than poetically, almost word by word, because that's what it took for me to understand it at all (and some of it may not be 100% correct... this poem was a stretch for me). I think with its lack of punctuation and unorthodox sentence structure it would be hard even for native speakers - or at least I'll tell myself that. I read somewhere recently that even a bad translation of a well-written poem is better than a wonderful translation of something mediocre, and this one was definitely worth the effort.

Time to digest this poem for a while before getting back to listening to Dogs in Space.




The views and experiences shared in this blog are mine alone and not indicative of the views of the Peace Corps or any other entity. 

30 Days of Ukrainian Poetry - Day 26 - "Sharp Eyes Open into the Dark"

Hello there, Day 26! Although we are in the final few days of this challenge, there are still many poets I have not found out about. I made a point today of finding somebody whose work I haven't read yet, and some googling led me to Olena Teliha. I was reading a list of Ukrainian women poets, and recognized her name because I think I have somewhere seen a street named after her, although I don't recall exactly when or where.

Olena Teliha did a lot of moving around in her life. She was born in Russia to a Ukrainian-Belorussian family, lived at various times in Poland (both in Warsaw and in Krakow) and also in what was at the time Czechoslovakia. She met her death in Kyiv, where she had secretly moved while it was under German occupation during World War II. Like many Ukrainian poets, she was killed - although not by Soviet authorities, but rather by the Nazis. She and her fellow writers publishing illegally in Kyiv were all rounded up and arrested in an ambush by the Gestapo. Her husband wasn't a writer - he was an engineer - but he lied and said he was a writer so that he could be taken with her. The date of their death isn't known for sure, but given the number of Ukrainian writers massacred at Babi Yar, a ravine-turned-mass-grave on the edge of Kyiv, in February 1942, February 21st has been established as a day to honor and remember Olena Teliha and her husband.

Below you can see footage of a remembrance ceremony in Kyiv by a monument to Olena Teliha, and also some archival footage from her life.

According to a bibliography of translations published in the online journal Ukrainian Literature, an English translation of today's poem exists in the anthology A Hundred Years of Youth: A bilingual anthology of 20th century Ukrainian poetry. Unfortunately, I have no way to access this translation without buying a print copy of the book, and even doing that seems difficult. It's not on Amazon, and no sellers are listed by Google Books. It seems the best way to get at it would be to go to a library in Germany or Poland, but that certainly isn't happening today. Anyway, in the Google Books preview I can at least see the first two lines of the poem, and it looks like it is probably a good translation. The title they give is somewhat different than my more literally translated one, but I don't wish to copy them, so I'm sticking with my own, less poetic rendition. Even in a choppy translation that lacks the rhyme of the Ukrainian original, it is still a powerful piece.

Гострi очi розкритi в морок

Олена Теліга

Гострi очi розкритi в морок,
Б'є годинник: чотири, п'ять…
Моє серце в гарячих зморах,
Я й сьогоднi не можу спать.

Але завтра спокiйно встану,
Так, як завжди, без жодних змiн,
I в життя, як в безжурний танок,
Увiйду до нiчних годин.

Придушу свiй невпинний спогад.
Буду радiсть давати й смiх.
Тiльки тим дана перемога,
Хто й у болi смiятись змiг!

Sharp Eyes Open into the Dark

Olena Teliha 

Sharp eyes open in the dark,
The click is ticking: four, five...
My heart is in hot nightmares,
Again today I cannot sleep.

But tomorrow I will calmly get up,
Yes, like always, without any changes,
And to life, like to a carefree dance,
I will go until the evening hours.

I will suppress my ceaseless memory.
I will give joy and laughter.
Victory is given only to those
Who can laugh through the pain!

The views and experiences expressed in this blog are mine alone and are not indicative of the views of Peace Corps, the US government, or the government of Ukraine. 

30 Days of Ukrainian Poetry - Day 25 - "By the Khreshchatyk Metro"

Day 25, and we're in the final stretch of 30 Days of Ukrainian Poetry! I feel like I'm going to have to go back through and read all these poems again so I can remember them.

In the meantime, there are still a few more days ahead of poetry - including today, of course. Today I'm sharing a poem I picked out a while back and saved for a day when I'd be able to read it on site, in the very place it describes. It's by poet Vasyl Stus. I got a strong notion in my head about a week and a half ago that I wanted to share something by him, but I haven't gotten to it until now because some of his stuff is rather complicated (although today's is pretty simple in terms of language).

Vasyl Stus was an active member of the dissident intelligentsia that was both very active in the 1960s, and heavily persecuted. He wrote many of his poems from Soviet forced labor camps where he was sent as punishment several times, and where he eventually died due to the inhumane conditions. He is quoted as equating life in the Soviet Union with slavery.

While many of his poems reflect the harsh reality of life in the gulag, today's verse is from happier times in Kyiv: a short little portrait of daily life in the city. I love that in his poem he appreciates what he sees without romanticizing or glamorizing it; he just recognizes and shares the life around him in a way that is vivid and beautiful simply as it is.

Бiля метро “Хрещатик” 

Василь Стус

Бiля метро “Хрещатик” 
щоранку зупиняється 
дитячий вiзок. 
Двiрничка вибирає з чавунних урн 
накиданий мотлох — 
старi газети, ганчiр'я, 
коробки з-пiд сiрникiв, недокурки, 
навантажить ними вiзок 
i сквером каштанiв рушає далi. 
А сьогоднi, напередоднi свята, 
вона вбрала найкращу спiдницю з сатину, 
новенькi черевики й фуфайку, 
навiть вiзок прикрасила 
штучними квiтами з поролону. 
Усмiшка й задума на її обличчi 
творить рiвновагу щастя. 

By the Khreshchatyk Metro

Vasyl Stus

Every morning
a children's stroller stops
by the Khreshchatyk Metro.
The groundskeeper selects discarded junk
from the metal trash cans - 
empty  matchboxes, cigarette butts, 
she loads these onto her cart
and moves along across the square beneath the chestnut trees.
Today is the day before a holiday,
and she has dressed in her finest satin skirt, 
new boots and a sweater, 
she has even decorated her stroller
with artificial foam flowers. 
The smile and thoughtfulness on her face
create a balance of happiness. 

Since I was in Kyiv today, I was able to head to the metro station described in this poem, and do my reading there.

And here is another reading, this time by Vitaliy Linetsky.

Greetings from Kyiv! Tomorrow I'll be back downriver a ways, at site and ready to finish out our month of poetry in the coming days.




The content of this blog reflects my personal views and experiences only and not those of Peace Corps or the governments of the US or Ukraine. 

30 Days of Ukrainian Poetry - Day 24 - "Love Ukraine"

How is it already Day 24?

Soon this 30-Day Challenge will be finished! But not yet - we have some very important poems to go, and quite a famous one for today. I mentioned in Day 20's blog how poet Volodymyr Sosiura seemed to constantly be toeing the line between being lauded and being in trouble, since he was writing during times of fluctuating levels of repression and censorship by the Soviet government. Nature poems like the one we read on Day 20 were safe, but the poem below certainly did not please the censors of the USSR and those authorities who favored cracking down on Ukrainian nationalism.

Любіть Україну!

  Володимир Сосюра

Любіть Україну, як сонце, любіть,
як вітер, і трави, і води…
В годину щасливу і в радості мить,
любіть у годину негоди.


Любіть Україну у сні й наяву,
вишневу свою Україну,
красу її, вічно живу і нову,
і мову її солов’їну. 


Без неї — ніщо ми, як порох і дим,
розвіяний в полі вітрами…
Любіть Україну всім серцем своїм
і всіма своїми ділами.


Для нас вона в світі єдина, одна
як очі її ніжно-карі…
Вона у зірках, і у вербах вона,
і в кожному серця ударі,


у квітці, в пташині, в кривеньких тинах,
у пісні у кожній, у думі,
в дитячий усмішці, в дівочих очах
і в стягів багряному шумі…


Як та купина, що горить — не згора,
живе у стежках, у дібровах,
у зойках гудків, і у хвилях Дніпра,
і в хмарах отих пурпурових,
 

в огні канонад, що на захід женуть
чужинців в зелених мундирах,
в багнетах, що в тьмі пробивали нам путь
до весен і світлих, і щирих.


Юначе! Хай буде для неї твій сміх,
і сльози, і все до загину…
Не можна любити народів других,
коли ти не любиш Вкраїну!..

 
Дівчино! Як небо її голубе,
люби її кожну хвилину…
Коханий любить не захоче тебе,
коли ти не любиш Вкраїну…


Любіть у труді, у коханні, в бою,
в цей час, як гудуть батареї.
Всім серцем любіть Україну свою —
і вічні ми будемо з нею!

 Love Ukraine!

Volodymyr Sosiura

Love your Ukraine, love as you would the sun,
The wind, the grasses and the streams together…
Love her in happy hours, when joys are won,
And love her in her time of stormy weather.


Love her in happy dreams and when awake,
Ukraine in spring’s white cherry-blossom veil.
Her beauty is eternal for your sake ;
Her speech is tender with the nightingale.

 
As in a garden of fraternal races,
She shines above the ages. Love Ukraine
With all your heart, and with exultant faces
Let all your deeds her majesty maintain.
 

For us she rides alone on history’s billows,
In the sweet charm of space she rules apart,
For she is in the stars, is in the willows,
And in each pulse-beat of her people’s heart,


In flowers and tiny birds, and lights that shine,
In every epic and in every song,
In a child’s smile, in maidens’ eyes divine,
And in the purple flags above the throng…

 
Youth ! For her sake give your approving laughter,
Your tears, and all you are until you die…
For other races you’ll not love hereafter
Unless you love Ukraine and hold her high.

 
Young woman ! As you would her sky of blue,
Love her each moment that your days remain.
Your sweetheart will not keep his love for you,
Unless he knows you also love Ukraine.

 
Love her in love, in labour, and in fight,
As if she were a song at heaven’s portal…
Love her with all your heart and all your might,
And with her glory we shall be immortal.

I really wanted to get my reading of this right, since it's such an important poem, but alas - sometimes in life we can only get so far in one day, and after multiple takes I'm still having to post a reading in which I trip over a few words. It's motivation for me to keep practicing. Also, after many close calls, I actually did get the day wrong on this one. It was bound to happen.

As I keep working on reading this myself, there are plenty of great recordings to listen to as practice and inspiration! First - a classic by Vasyl Bukolyk.

And, of course, a song. This one is by a traditional folk choir.

The views and experiences expressed in this blog are mine alone and are not indicative of the views of Peace Corps or the governments of the US or Ukraine.