Thank you for sharing these with us. I can feel them all: the emotion leaps from the screen.
Since the full-scale invasion I’ve sought out Ukrainian poetry (in translation) as the medium which comes the closest to being able to express the full horror of what’s going on (though by ‘closet’, I only mean that poetry can do about 1% of the job, while everything else does about 0.01%). And poetry tends to be in the vanguard of culture because it can be written swiftly. The fragmentary nature of poetry can sometimes paradoxically add up to more substance than a whole slab of prose. The very silences between lines sometimes bear a vast weight.
Even more than the rage and grief, bewilderment at the enormity of it all is the quality that most unites the Ukrainian poetry I’ve read so far. Yours is the first poetry I’ve read that was written in English that has this. I’m afraid there’s some real dreck out there by established Anglophone writers. (I do not recommend reading ‘Resistance’ by Simon Armitage, let alone ‘Near Izium’ by Paul Muldoon, but I’ll mention them so as not to make a sweeping assertion with no evidence.)
Early in the war Halyna Kruk seemed to be saying that even poetry was no use to/within Ukraine: ‘We speak an unintelligible language, where there’s no room for poetry.’ https://euromaidanpress.com/2022/06/27/war-is-not-a-metaphor/ But since then she has published a collection, ‘A Crash Course in Molotov Cocktails’, which has been translated into English, so hopefully she feels it’s possible to communicate something across the gap now.
The best poetry I’ve found about looking on at Ukraine from outside is a short burst of material from Iryna Shuvalova, that she wrote in the very first days of the war (in Ukrainian, though the English translation is presented here without comment: https://www.irynashuvalova.com/en/war-poems .)
I can see a progression in your work here, which is probably obvious to you, so forgive me: incredulity and wishes in 2022, then acceptance and adaptation settles in in early 2023 with the imagery of seeds and serving bullets back and your own strength, and this summer the reality has settled in enough that ‘you’ – or the narrator self, which is never identical with the living person – has been able to become to some degree reflective. I guess this is a survival adaptation for those of us who are not inside the war experience but nevertheless live with it, while poetry from within Ukraine continues to be an intense in-the-moment response.
I have also been writing poetry since about day four of the war. I hadn’t done so since my dubious adolescent works nearly 30 years ago, but suddenly it felt imperative to my psychological survival. However, I’m editing and polishing with an eye to eventual ‘publication’, so I have not shared anything online. I put ‘publication’ in scare quotes to indicate that I mean gatekept publishing, i.e. official literary outlets of some kind. This is hopefully a realistic ambition as I’m a professional writer and editor in other fields. The English-language poetry scene is very small but I’m cherishing the hope that adding some not-dreadful poetry about Ukraine to it would be another strand in the ongoing awareness-raising and -maintenance mission we are all on.
I hope you’ll keep writing poems as intense as these. Thanks again.
Thank you for your feedback, Anna! Indeed, there is a progression in these poems as I've been gradually changing over this time as well. Looking back at me from Feb 2022, I feel I am no longer this person. This war cost me my innocence and naivety, which I still managed to preserve despite many life challenges. However, I'm grateful for the lessons, no matter how painful they were.
Thank you for sharing with me the work of Iryna Shuvalova! Her poems are poignant and beautiful. Hope to see your poems in the future whenever you're ready to publish them.
I've tried reading this several times. This won't be my only comment. I get as far as the first poem and my brain just stops me reading the rest. Because those last two verses. A dragon to destroy Ukraine's enemies -- YES!
I remember when the realisations recorded in poem 7 hit you. When you found the freedom to be who you are, no matter what others think or say. It really is in crisis that we learn who our real friends are... So perhaps we should be thankful for crises. Tough as they are, they really make people show their true colours. And there must be some good in that.
Poem 8. So much truth in that. Especially the second verse. Some tragedies don't touch us any more, but then, all unsuspecting, one hits you in the gut and knocks you for six.
And all each one of us can do is our best. We can only do what is given us to do. Each one.
And the final two poems. Very, very true. I like the contrasts, the conclusions you draw in these two.
Every poem is very real, thought-provoking and clear in its message. I like each one of them. Yes, even those I didn't directly comment on. Thank you for sharing them with us.
Thank you so much for your feedback, Laurel! It was a pleasure reading your thoughts and how my poems resonated with you. I often reread my own poems because they help me process emotions or feelings. Sometimes, the poem I wrote in the past resonates more in the present than when I wrote it. There is some magic in it. A few months ago, someone messaged me and said that they showed my poems to their mom, who refused to understand and support Ukraine. After reading them, she changed her views. I think this is the ultimate goal of these poems: to provoke thoughts and feelings, to teach, and to connect our minds with our hearts.
I’m so glad you have this gift to express your heart so that we can understand. Something I read many years ago, that has stuck with me ever since, was how limiting words alone are, thought (independent of language) and feelings are more powerful than mere words. You being able to put your words into poetry, or your art, helps you convey those thoughts and emotions to the rest of us. Hugging you husband in number 6 brought me to tears, it wasn’t the words, it was the emotion of the moment. Keep up your wonderful emotion evoking writing Darya! ❤️
Number 9 is incredible. Especially as I've finally started this year to read Russian literature. I wasn't ready because I didn't have the tools to frame it properly. I won't be reading just Russian either. I'm collecting Ukrainian and Belarusian recommendations too.
Jul 11, 2023·edited Jul 11, 2023Liked by Darya Zorka
I never "got" poetry, but I am getting it now. It's an economical way of expressing one's thoughts and concerns instead of writing a book or a novel. I had "observed" over the years that poetry seemed popular by citizens who had survived wars that were known for their human rights violation. As such, I would, by wont, focus on the syntactic structure of the poems rather than on their meaning, which I never thought I was capable of understanding. Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the images of families struggling to ford across collapsed bombed bridges to escape the death raining from above was the beginning of my awakening, and perhaps my personal shame for not caring more or doing more to help those in need of help. Sometimes I lay in bed and recall those early images of people fleeing who did not forsake their family pets....it makes me mad because in a way I believe many of us in far off lands had been partialized institutionalized not to care, and instead learned to vicariously excise our guilt by expressing tokens of empathy or charity....how else does one explain how useless and self serving the ARC or Amnesty International has become. The truth about those organizations has been out there for years and even though the invasion of Ukraine has spotlighted those organizations shortcomings, who doubts that were the war to stop tomorrow, that the status quo would once again return to rely on their fetish for jingoistic platitudes (e.g. Article 5) vs. hard truth whilst Russia retools and prepares for another invasion, and most likely it would be far more existential than what is happening now.
I am getting it now...poetry is always about human expression. If there were more poets would Merkel have been able to ignore the warnings of coupling Germany's economy to Russia. It is shocking that somebody so familiar with Russian history would have indirectly dragged us into the mess we are in now, for in Russia today there are no Gogols just deal souls.
Thank you, David! It means a lot to hear that my poems resonated with you and probably changed your attitude toward poetry in general. I think poetry is one of the best tools to express yourself and make others feel what you feel.
Speaking about Merkel - I don't think any poetry could influence her political decisions. Working in politics for many years does something to humans that reduce their empathy, compassion, and willingness to see things clearly and make bold decisions.
P.S.: I love how you said: "in Russia today there are no Gogols just dead souls.". This is so true.
Thank you for sharing these with us. I can feel them all: the emotion leaps from the screen.
Since the full-scale invasion I’ve sought out Ukrainian poetry (in translation) as the medium which comes the closest to being able to express the full horror of what’s going on (though by ‘closet’, I only mean that poetry can do about 1% of the job, while everything else does about 0.01%). And poetry tends to be in the vanguard of culture because it can be written swiftly. The fragmentary nature of poetry can sometimes paradoxically add up to more substance than a whole slab of prose. The very silences between lines sometimes bear a vast weight.
Even more than the rage and grief, bewilderment at the enormity of it all is the quality that most unites the Ukrainian poetry I’ve read so far. Yours is the first poetry I’ve read that was written in English that has this. I’m afraid there’s some real dreck out there by established Anglophone writers. (I do not recommend reading ‘Resistance’ by Simon Armitage, let alone ‘Near Izium’ by Paul Muldoon, but I’ll mention them so as not to make a sweeping assertion with no evidence.)
Early in the war Halyna Kruk seemed to be saying that even poetry was no use to/within Ukraine: ‘We speak an unintelligible language, where there’s no room for poetry.’ https://euromaidanpress.com/2022/06/27/war-is-not-a-metaphor/ But since then she has published a collection, ‘A Crash Course in Molotov Cocktails’, which has been translated into English, so hopefully she feels it’s possible to communicate something across the gap now.
The best poetry I’ve found about looking on at Ukraine from outside is a short burst of material from Iryna Shuvalova, that she wrote in the very first days of the war (in Ukrainian, though the English translation is presented here without comment: https://www.irynashuvalova.com/en/war-poems .)
I can see a progression in your work here, which is probably obvious to you, so forgive me: incredulity and wishes in 2022, then acceptance and adaptation settles in in early 2023 with the imagery of seeds and serving bullets back and your own strength, and this summer the reality has settled in enough that ‘you’ – or the narrator self, which is never identical with the living person – has been able to become to some degree reflective. I guess this is a survival adaptation for those of us who are not inside the war experience but nevertheless live with it, while poetry from within Ukraine continues to be an intense in-the-moment response.
I have also been writing poetry since about day four of the war. I hadn’t done so since my dubious adolescent works nearly 30 years ago, but suddenly it felt imperative to my psychological survival. However, I’m editing and polishing with an eye to eventual ‘publication’, so I have not shared anything online. I put ‘publication’ in scare quotes to indicate that I mean gatekept publishing, i.e. official literary outlets of some kind. This is hopefully a realistic ambition as I’m a professional writer and editor in other fields. The English-language poetry scene is very small but I’m cherishing the hope that adding some not-dreadful poetry about Ukraine to it would be another strand in the ongoing awareness-raising and -maintenance mission we are all on.
I hope you’ll keep writing poems as intense as these. Thanks again.
Thank you for your feedback, Anna! Indeed, there is a progression in these poems as I've been gradually changing over this time as well. Looking back at me from Feb 2022, I feel I am no longer this person. This war cost me my innocence and naivety, which I still managed to preserve despite many life challenges. However, I'm grateful for the lessons, no matter how painful they were.
Thank you for sharing with me the work of Iryna Shuvalova! Her poems are poignant and beautiful. Hope to see your poems in the future whenever you're ready to publish them.
I ordered a copied of Iryna Shuvalova's "Pray to the Empty Wells". It was the only work of hers I found that had been translated to English.
D
I've tried reading this several times. This won't be my only comment. I get as far as the first poem and my brain just stops me reading the rest. Because those last two verses. A dragon to destroy Ukraine's enemies -- YES!
I remember when the realisations recorded in poem 7 hit you. When you found the freedom to be who you are, no matter what others think or say. It really is in crisis that we learn who our real friends are... So perhaps we should be thankful for crises. Tough as they are, they really make people show their true colours. And there must be some good in that.
Poem 8. So much truth in that. Especially the second verse. Some tragedies don't touch us any more, but then, all unsuspecting, one hits you in the gut and knocks you for six.
And all each one of us can do is our best. We can only do what is given us to do. Each one.
And the final two poems. Very, very true. I like the contrasts, the conclusions you draw in these two.
Every poem is very real, thought-provoking and clear in its message. I like each one of them. Yes, even those I didn't directly comment on. Thank you for sharing them with us.
Thank you so much for your feedback, Laurel! It was a pleasure reading your thoughts and how my poems resonated with you. I often reread my own poems because they help me process emotions or feelings. Sometimes, the poem I wrote in the past resonates more in the present than when I wrote it. There is some magic in it. A few months ago, someone messaged me and said that they showed my poems to their mom, who refused to understand and support Ukraine. After reading them, she changed her views. I think this is the ultimate goal of these poems: to provoke thoughts and feelings, to teach, and to connect our minds with our hearts.
That is precious! You changed one person's heart! Wow.
Re-reading these again,
I am deeply moved, again,
especially by your last lines
of your final poem:
“People look at me and say:
You are too emotional.
You need to stop feeling so deeply.
Casualties are normal during war.
I look at them and say:
In order to save our humanity,
we need to start feeling more.”
🙏💙🇺🇦💛🙏
Thank you, Bill!
I’m so glad you have this gift to express your heart so that we can understand. Something I read many years ago, that has stuck with me ever since, was how limiting words alone are, thought (independent of language) and feelings are more powerful than mere words. You being able to put your words into poetry, or your art, helps you convey those thoughts and emotions to the rest of us. Hugging you husband in number 6 brought me to tears, it wasn’t the words, it was the emotion of the moment. Keep up your wonderful emotion evoking writing Darya! ❤️
Thank you so much, Mike, for your kind words and feedback!
Thank you for sharing your heart through these poems.
Your words touch my heart.
Thank you, Bill!
Number 9 is incredible. Especially as I've finally started this year to read Russian literature. I wasn't ready because I didn't have the tools to frame it properly. I won't be reading just Russian either. I'm collecting Ukrainian and Belarusian recommendations too.
Thank you! Ukrainian literature to read:
“Kobzar” by Taras Shevchenko
“The Forest Song" by Lesya Ukrainka
“Babi Yar" by Anatoly Kuznetsov
“The city” by Valerian Pidmohylnyi
“Tiger trappers” by Ivan Bahriany
“The orphanage” by Serhiy Zhadan
In terms of Belarusian authors:
my favorite is Uladzimir Karatkievich. I found my favorite work of him “King Stakh’s Wild Hunt” in English: https://glagoslav.com/shop/king-stakhs-wild-hunt-by-uladzimir-karatkevich/
Дуже , дуже гарно описано ❤️ Твій текст мені завжди прямо в серденько попадає!
Дуже дякую!
I never "got" poetry, but I am getting it now. It's an economical way of expressing one's thoughts and concerns instead of writing a book or a novel. I had "observed" over the years that poetry seemed popular by citizens who had survived wars that were known for their human rights violation. As such, I would, by wont, focus on the syntactic structure of the poems rather than on their meaning, which I never thought I was capable of understanding. Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the images of families struggling to ford across collapsed bombed bridges to escape the death raining from above was the beginning of my awakening, and perhaps my personal shame for not caring more or doing more to help those in need of help. Sometimes I lay in bed and recall those early images of people fleeing who did not forsake their family pets....it makes me mad because in a way I believe many of us in far off lands had been partialized institutionalized not to care, and instead learned to vicariously excise our guilt by expressing tokens of empathy or charity....how else does one explain how useless and self serving the ARC or Amnesty International has become. The truth about those organizations has been out there for years and even though the invasion of Ukraine has spotlighted those organizations shortcomings, who doubts that were the war to stop tomorrow, that the status quo would once again return to rely on their fetish for jingoistic platitudes (e.g. Article 5) vs. hard truth whilst Russia retools and prepares for another invasion, and most likely it would be far more existential than what is happening now.
I am getting it now...poetry is always about human expression. If there were more poets would Merkel have been able to ignore the warnings of coupling Germany's economy to Russia. It is shocking that somebody so familiar with Russian history would have indirectly dragged us into the mess we are in now, for in Russia today there are no Gogols just deal souls.
As always, I salute risk takers.
Thank you, David! It means a lot to hear that my poems resonated with you and probably changed your attitude toward poetry in general. I think poetry is one of the best tools to express yourself and make others feel what you feel.
Speaking about Merkel - I don't think any poetry could influence her political decisions. Working in politics for many years does something to humans that reduce their empathy, compassion, and willingness to see things clearly and make bold decisions.
P.S.: I love how you said: "in Russia today there are no Gogols just dead souls.". This is so true.