{"id":16553,"date":"2022-03-10T16:50:30","date_gmt":"2022-03-10T21:50:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/?page_id=16553"},"modified":"2022-06-06T12:48:03","modified_gmt":"2022-06-06T16:48:03","slug":"3-poems-translated-from-ukrainian-by-dzvinia-orlowsky-and-ali-kinsella","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/3-poems-translated-from-ukrainian-by-dzvinia-orlowsky-and-ali-kinsella\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Poems from Ukrainian by Natalka Bilotserkivets, Translated by Dzvinia Orlowsky and Ali Kinsella"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When Grace Mahoney, editor of the Lost Horse Press Contemporary Ukrainian Poetry Series, introduced us in March of 2020, no one had any inkling of the devastating global impact the COVID-19 pandemic would cause. Quarantine forced us into smaller, interior spaces, spaces where poetry thrives. We were both familiar with Natalka Bilotserkivets\u2019s work, either through graduate studies or collaboration, and welcomed exploring her poems that touched on movement and restricted movement, as well as symbolic movement, in greater depth. Fast forward to February 2022 and Russia\u2019s annihilative attack on Ukraine, we now read these poems through the lens of war and find they speak with equal truths as during the height and decline of the former Soviet Union. \u201cWolf Wine Bar,\u201d in particular, written approximately 12 years ago though published in our book for the first time in any language, attests to indiscriminate war violence. –Ali Kinsella and Dzvinia Orlowsky<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Bridge <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The air is as still and hot
as my body. Arched like a bridge
over a river. It\u2019s so quiet\u2014the nightingales
must be drinking their own black alcohol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No sounds. Only color and shades
spread out across the water.
Face up\u2014that\u2019s how it was with me.
Evenings as glorious as spirits!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are memory catastrophes.
They collapse into signs, halftones, details
of blocks, construction of rail,
inflows of blood, formulas for love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t remember the color of eyes,
but their expression\u2019s still here\u2014
when a devastating pulse of extreme temperature
drops from above onto the bridge.<\/kbd><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
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Translated by Ali Kinsella and Dzvinia Orlowsky<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Wolf Wine Bar<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Two years ago, maybe even two and a half,
life hadn\u2019t yet seemed so hopeless:
chestnuts didn\u2019t choke on rusty blood,
floods didn\u2019t reach the windows of the buildings
with the Wolf wine bar and Dove coffee shop
and the small theater under the large lanterns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Two years ago, maybe even two and a half,
we didn\u2019t have such severe snows and frosts:
water didn\u2019t freeze in the boilers and pipes,
flutes never froze to lips or fingers,
the snow didn\u2019t stick to legs in thin stockings,
ice didn\u2019t appear on carpets in hotels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the forest fires, tsunamis with women\u2019s names,
blood and wine on dead legs in thin stockings,
carpets covered with the wreckage of aircraft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So be it. There\u2019s still time for the final sign:
a time when wolves run, doves fly,
and, having left behind their foundations, pulling out their roots,
the Wolf wine bar and Dove coffee shop will disappear,
the lanterns, chestnuts, hotel, and theater.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Translated by Ali Kinsella and Dzvinia Orlowsky<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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 We’ll Not Die in Paris<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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  I will die in Paris on Thursday evening.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2014C\u00e9sar Vallejo<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You forget the lines smells colors and sounds\nsight weakens     hearing fades     simple pleasures pass\nyou lift your face and hands toward your soul\nbut to high and unreachable summits it soars\n\nwhat remains is only the depot      the last stop\nthe gray foam of goodbyes lathers and swells\nalready it washes over my naked palms\nits awful sweet warmth seeps into my mouth\nlove alone remains though better off gone\n\nin a provincial bed I cried till exhausted\nthrough the window      a scraggly rose-colored lilac spied\nthe train moved on   spent lovers stared\nat the dirty shelf heaving beneath your flesh\noutside a depot\u2019s spring passed      grew quiet\n\nwe\u2019ll not die in Paris     I know now for sure\nbut in a sweat and tear-stained provincial bed\nno one will serve us our cognac     I know\nwe won\u2019t be saved by kisses\nunder the Pont Mirabeau murky circles won\u2019t fade\n\ntoo bitter we cried      abused nature\nwe loved too fiercely\n                           our lovers shamed \ntoo many poems we wrote\n                           disregarding poets\nthey\u2019ll not let us die in Paris\nand the alluring water\n             under the Pont Mirabeau\nwill be encircled with barricades<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
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Translated by Dzvinia Orlowsky<\/p>\n\n\n
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Natalka Bilotserkivets\u2019<\/strong> work, known for lyricism and the quiet power of despair, became hallmarks of Ukraine\u2019s literary life of the 1980s. The collections Allergy <\/em>(1999) and Central Hotel<\/em> (2004) were the winners of Book of the Year contests in 2000 and 2004 respectively. In the West, she\u2019s mostly known on the strength of a handful of widely translated poems, while the better part of her oeuvre remains unknown. She lives and works in Kyiv. Her poem, \u201cWe\u2019ll Not Die in Paris,\u201d became the hymn of the post-Chornobyl generation of young Ukrainians that helped topple the Soviet Union.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Ali Kinsella<\/strong> has been translating from Ukrainian for eight years. Her published works include essays, poetry, monographs, and subtitles to various films. She holds an MA from Columbia University, where she wrote a thesis on the intersection of feminism and nationalism in small states. Her latest work, Love in Defiance of Pain: Ukrainian Stories<\/a><\/em>, an anthology in support of Ukrainians today, is soon available from Deep Vellum Press. A former Peace Corps volunteer, Ali lived in Ukraine for nearly five years. She is currently in Chicago, where she also sometimes works as a baker.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Dzvinia Orlowsky <\/strong>is a Pushcart Prize and award-winning author, translator, and a founding editor of Four Way Books. She has published six poetry collections including A Handful of Bees<\/em>, reprinted for the Carnegie Mellon University Classic Contemporary Series, Convertible Night, Flurry of Stone<\/em>, winner of a Sheila Motton Book Award, and Bad Harvest<\/em>, a 2019 Massachusetts Book Awards \u201cMust Read\u201d in Poetry. Her poem sequence \u201cThe (Dis)enchanted Desna\u201d was selected by Robert Pinsky as the 2019 co-winner of the New England Poetry Club Samuel Washington Allen Prize. Her co-translations with Ali Kinsella from Ukrainian, Eccentric Days of Hope and Sorrow: Selected Poems by Natalka Bilotserkivets <\/em>was published by Lost Horse Press in 2021.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
Poems from Eccentric Days of Hope and Sorrow: Poems by Natalka Bilotserkivets<\/em>, translated by Ali Kinsella and Dzvinia Orlowsky (Lost Horse Press, 2021). With permission from Lost Horse Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For the Translator’s Page archive click HERE<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When Grace Mahoney, editor of the Lost Horse Press Contemporary Ukrainian Poetry Series, introduced us in March of 2020, no one had any inkling of the devastating global impact the COVID-19 pandemic would cause. Quarantine forced us into smaller, interior spaces, spaces where poetry thrives. We were both familiar with Natalka Bilotserkivets\u2019s work, either through […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-16553","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16553"}],"version-history":[{"count":87,"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16553\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16976,"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16553\/revisions\/16976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}