Artikel
Welcome to Ukrainian poetry - August 2004
18 januari 2006
On the dazzling borderline
Between two worlds –
Stop, wait.
My God. At last.
Look, here’s where poetry comes from.
It is not necessary to experience this borderline when one starts reading poetry. But to continue reading it, living with it, one needs to be ready to approach this borderline, this abyss at any moment. One might even seek it. Although – wouldn’t you agree? – everyone has an abyss of one’s own.
A few more weeks, and August will come to an end,
A few more tries, and the abyss will open.
That’s what {id="5528" title="Yuri Andrukhovych"} says; his poems from a new collection are also presented in this issue. Even so, the last two public readings he had in Kyiv (together with a few other Ukrainian poets) were full: some five to seven hundred young excited faces were eagerly listening to the poetry. An absolute success, but on whose side – poetry’s or the poet’s? But rest assured, his next poetry book will be published in two thousand copies at the most.
And thank goodness! Imagine 48 million Ukrainians all of a sudden falling into a poetic abyss. Then who will be cultivating these immense fertile lands, working to increase the GDP, and fighting for democracy and political stability? The poets themselves – but how many poets does this country have? The Ukrainian domain is supported by the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Ukraine, and the International Renaissance Foundation
Ukraine is a country of 48 million people where print runs of poetry books never exceed two thousand, usually approximating 700–1000 copies. Does this mean that Ukrainians do not read poetry? Or they do not read in Ukrainian? Or they do not read at all? But how many poetry readers can a country have?
A few weeks ago, during an interview about the poetry scene in contemporary Ukraine, a journalist from the state TV channel asked me: “In the 1960s, during the Soviet era, poets like Yevtushenko and Voznesensky were reading in packed stadiums. Such things don’t happen any more. Why is Ukrainian poetry declining these days?’ I responded with a question of my own: Publicity and lucidity – are these criteria sufficient to call poetry successful? After all, who said that poetry should be successful? Poetry should simply be, emerging at the very moment when it cannot do anything but emerge. In the words of {id="5524" title="Oksana Zabuzhko"}, Ukraine's poet of the quarter:On the dazzling borderline
Between two worlds –
Stop, wait.
My God. At last.
Look, here’s where poetry comes from.
It is not necessary to experience this borderline when one starts reading poetry. But to continue reading it, living with it, one needs to be ready to approach this borderline, this abyss at any moment. One might even seek it. Although – wouldn’t you agree? – everyone has an abyss of one’s own.
A few more weeks, and August will come to an end,
A few more tries, and the abyss will open.
That’s what {id="5528" title="Yuri Andrukhovych"} says; his poems from a new collection are also presented in this issue. Even so, the last two public readings he had in Kyiv (together with a few other Ukrainian poets) were full: some five to seven hundred young excited faces were eagerly listening to the poetry. An absolute success, but on whose side – poetry’s or the poet’s? But rest assured, his next poetry book will be published in two thousand copies at the most.
And thank goodness! Imagine 48 million Ukrainians all of a sudden falling into a poetic abyss. Then who will be cultivating these immense fertile lands, working to increase the GDP, and fighting for democracy and political stability? The poets themselves – but how many poets does this country have? The Ukrainian domain is supported by the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Ukraine, and the International Renaissance Foundation
© Kateryna Botanova
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