Poetry | Amid all losses: Ukrainian poets as witnesses | UCF

Razom for Ukraine

When poets confront war, their writing transforms to both document and bear witness.

Razom for Ukraine Office

When poets confront war, their writing transforms to both document and bear witness. Whether in Ostap Slyvynsky’s “Dictionary of War”, Yuliia Iliukha’s “My Women” or Alex Averbuch’s documentary poetry based on online conversations of Ukrainians living under Russian occupation, real people emerge with their stories, offering a harrowing account of what it is like to endure a violent invasion.

Ostap Slyvynsky is a Ukrainian poet, translator, essayist, and scholar. He authored five books of poetry: Sacrifice of Big Fish (1998), The Midday Line (2004), Ball in Darkness (2008), Adam (2012), The Winter King (2018), as well as The Dictionary of War (2023), a documentary book based on a testimony of participants and witnesses of the Russian aggression against Ukraine. His books have been published in the USA (The Winter King, Lost Horse Press 2023), Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Slovakia, and Macedonia. The Winter King, translated by Iryna Shuvalova is shortlisted for American Translation Prize and Derek Walcott Prize this year. He is also known for translating the works by Derek Walcott, William Carlos Williams, Charles Simic, Czesław Miłosz, Olga Tokarczuk, Georgi Gospodinov, and many others.Ostap Slyvynsky is Associate Professor at the Department of Philology, Ukrainian Catholic University (Lviv). Since 2021, he organizes PEN Ukraine’s festival Propysy (The Writings) aimed at novice authors. He was elected the Vice President of PEN Ukraine in 2022.Alex Averbuch, a native of Novoaidar, Luhansk region, Ukraine, is a Ukrainian poet, translator, and scholar. He is the author of four books of poetry and an array of over sixty selections of literary translations between Ukrainian, Russian, Hebrew, and English. His poems have appeared in English translation in Beloit, Manhattan Review, Copper Nickel, Birmingham Poetry Review, Plume, Words Without Borders, Sugar House Review, Constellations, and Common Knowledge, as well as in anthologies in English, Italian, French, Romanian, Hebrew, Finnish, Estonian, and Polish translation. His works have been twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Averbuch’s latest poetry book was a finalist for the Shevchenko National Prize, Ukraine’s highest award for culture and literature. He is currently an assistant professor of Ukrainian literature and culture in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Michigan. During the reading, he will share passages from his latest poetry projects, featuring documentary poetry based on online conversations with Ukrainians living in Russian-occupied territories—a poetic chronicle reflecting on life under occupation, affiliation, guilt, accusation, and the future of these territories and their people. Additionally, he will read from his book-length poema, which is an inventory of items left behind in the family apartment in the occupied territory. Yuliia Iliukha is a Ukrainian poet, writer, and journalist. She is the author of two novels, The Eastern Syndrome and Zero, short story collection The Sky Catchers. Teach Me to Dream, poetry collections Graphomaniac Poems and Das letzte Ahornblatt, and several children’s books. Her poetry and prose have been translated into English, German, Italian, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Catalan, Polish, Swedish, Portuguese, and French. Iliukha has received many awards, including 128 LIT’s 2023 International Chapbook Prize. She is a writer-in-residence at Internationales Haus der Autor:innen in Graz, Austria. Since 2014, when Russia unleashed war against Ukraine, she has been actively involved in volunteering. Together with her friend, she assembled over 500 individual tactical medical kits for Ukrainian soldiers.

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Poetry | Amid all losses: Ukrainian poets as witnesses | UCF

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Poetry | Amid all losses: Ukrainian poets as witnesses | UCF

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