Description: berichten en brieven, notities, teksten en radio-werk, tekens van leven en sterven, aanwezigheid en afwezigheid, labo en latrine, liefde en leed.
bifurcation point by Halyna Kruk (Ukraine) in wartime Lviv, (they’ll write later) there was a strong literary milieu, most likely, they published as a group (like those modernists in “Mytusa”) or gathered for readings (because what else would poets do in wartime!) there were so many there: the internally-displaced and the externally-dysfunctional like briefly during the first world war, and the second, on their way through Europe, before the iron curtain tore the modern world’s voluptuous naked body wide op
and Jesus ascended at the Mount of Olives in the city of Bucha, in the city of Irpin, in the town of Hostomel, in the village of Motyzhyn in the town of Borodianka in the city of Chernihiv, in the city of Kharkiv, in the long-suffering city of Mariupol and prayed to the Father– let this cup stop with me, crucified on a bodily cross on an unidentified mortal’s body 2022 the year of our Lord in a soulless world heaven and earth walk on by Halyna Kruk Translated, from the Ukrainian, by Amelia Glaser and Yuliya
These stunning poems of witness by one of Ukraine’s most revered poets are by turns breathless, philosophical, and visionary. In a dark recapitulation of evolution itself, Kruk writes: “nothing predicted the arrival of humankind..../ nothing predicted the arrival of the tank...” Her taught, lean lines can turn epigrammatic: “what will kill you will seduce you first,” or they can strike you like Lomachenko’s lightening jabs: “flirt, Cheka agent, bitch.” Leading readers into the world’s darkest spaces, Kruk i