"People waste too many words"

1 december 2006 Halyna, little is known about you. So please start by telling us a bit about yourself. What’s your biography?

My biography is probably rather typical for my generation. I was born in a village deep in the Carpathian Mountains, not far from the Romanian border. In northern Romania there’s a small town, a city, called Baya-Mare. There’s a university there. Our city is closer to Baya-Mare than to Ivano-Frankivsk [center of the region]. So, I probably could have studied and taught at a university in Baya-Mare. But I’ve never been to Romania, and this is certainly one of my dreams - to go there and visit my closest neighbors. 

In the late 1980s, in 1987 I entered the Ivano-Frankivsk Pedagogical Institute. I studied there in the in the Russian-German department until 1992; I loved literature. I used to read quite a lot in the childhood and later on. I also wrote, at first secretly and then openly. Later, something rather lucky happened in my life – a literary workshop led by Stepan Pushyk. It gathered young writers, among them students such as Volodia Yeshkiliev, Maria Mykytsey, Ihor Andrusiak, Ivan Andrusiak, Svitlana Breslavska. This circle played a very important role in my life. And perhaps, this still resonates in me. 

Was there a definite moment when you knew you wanted to write?

There were several. The first was still in school, when someone praised my poems. When you’re at that age, if someone praises you, you immediately think you’re a star and you start carrying yourself like a poet. And I was somewhat like this. Then in college I suffered my first blows and disappointments. Those who critiqued my poems said that they were empty, that my images were borrowed, that my poems were dilettantish and mindless rants. This for me was a blow; I fell from my high. But luckily this fall wasn’t fatal. After that I was able to stand up and pull myself together.

And there was a time, in the early 1990s, when I felt as if writing was a modeling of myself – it was a means of self-perfection or self-creation. I felt that by writing you can enrich yourself, create, add something to yourself that really isn’t there. And this really fostered my creativity.

Are there any writers whose works influenced your writing style?

There are several. Naturally, they were those who were close to me, those who I already named. This includes writers who were published in Chetver (Thursday)* and produced Chetver, because our literary study and the emergence of Chetver were parallel events. Among them are Yuri Andrukhovych, Volodymyr Yeshkiliev, others more distant in location and time. Also Russian authors, such as Joseph Brodsky, and the Ukrainian poets of the 1970s, 1960s, who I read with some interest.

Recently you have been leading the literary workshop at the Writers’ Union. How and who came up with the idea of creating such a workshop?

The idea belonged to one of the union members, Vasyl Dobriansky, who asked me. I agreed because I saw some interesting things in it for me. I don’t know wheather it’s possible to teach someone something in this sphere, but you can at least bring people together, introduce them to one another, direct them in what they read, the authors they select, in forming their literary taste, etc. These types of things you can instill. And I try to do this as much as I can.

Have you been writing poetry yourself lately?

I hardly write any poems, perhaps because of well known and banal reasons. As they say, after 30…  On the other hand, this is my personal break down. Maybe one day this will all come back. It’s just that recently I turned to a more private life. Creativity, as such, for me always demanded a great deal of space and time, and at the present I have too little space and time for creativity. Some people can write on their knee, on a napkin, between rocking a baby and frying potatoes. For me it’s somewhat different. I have to have a very good atmosphere - nobody around, no unnecessary sounds, movements, etc.

So, at the given moment, family life triumphs?

You can say that. But I think that my current life is also fruitful in the sense of creativity, because I’m trying to think some things over. I am drawing certain conclusions which I will later want to share and perhaps they will be worthy of that.

Most of the young writers you made your debut with are now quite famous. You’re almost unheard of. Don’t you feel yourself left on the side of the literary process?

No, after all, I consciously did everything not be heard of. Even when I try, as they say these days, to promote myself, I do so very languidly, spontaneously. Andrukhovych once said that a writer’s popularity is very relative. Apparently only 5% of people read and only 2% of them read poetry, so this is a popularity among those 0.25%. That’s why I take this easily.

By my nature I’m not a very public person; I don’t know how to behave publicly. I’m afraid of the convention that a star should be distant, you can’t make any unnecessary movements, you can’t say any unnecessary words, you must always shine, stroll the streets like a star should, don’t compromise yourself in words, deeds and behavior. I’m very far from it. That’s why I’m happy that I don’t have this publicity. I acknowledge those who like my poems, and perhaps I’ll write something else for them.

Your style guided numerous young writers and poets because in many of their poems you can find the echoes of your ‘To remain at the Dominican school near Vienna forever.’

These are very conditional things. We all read something and everyone is influenced by something, depending on what’s closer to them. But no matter how we’re influenced by what we read, what we love, we still remain ourselves. I like to observe imitation. Many people imitate one author or another, but they do this in different ways, based on their readings, on their internal potential. And this is very interesting. No matter how you try to be somebody, you never get beyond your own limits. For authors this is very good because it saves them from total plagiarism.

In literature, is there someone who is your ideal, your idol?

I’m at the age when the time of idols is slowly coming to an end. I feel a deep sense of recognition to many people, at times, astonishment and positive astonishment at the strength of their mind, of their talent. There are many like that. I’m afraid that if I name them all I will miss someone. But in writers, and in people in general, I value compassion, the ability to be different, to understand others, to listen to others. If such characteristics are perceptible in an author’s works, this moves me.

What are you currently reading? What book that you read recently made the biggest impression?

Recently I was in Vienna and brought back some books. I read about Vienna of the early 20th century, about personalities that lived at the time, such as Freud and many writers. I read short essays about these people, about their lives, about their oddities, because most of them were actually quite odd, about their personal life. Michael Horowitz, the author of this book, writes that his father is from Stanislav [former name of the city of Ivano-Frankivsk] – this also touched me. He was a Jew from Stanislav, who moved to Vienna in the late 19th or early 20th century.

Critics note the particular refinement of your poetry. Are you like this in life, or just in your literature?

I’d like to say in life, but this would be going too far. So I’m not going to say that I am too refined in life, although in some things I am. As for literature . . . I often get the sense that people waste too many words. I don’t want to resort to this, at least not in my poems. * Chetver (Thursday) was an informal literary magazine that appeared in 1992. Quite some Ukrainian writers made their debut in it.