Ihor Pavlyuk invites us to roam the forests of Ukraine with him while swigging vodka from a hip flask and watching pagan gods flicker among the birches. These poems combine beautifully-wrought metaphors, transforming a shooting star into ‘candlelight glimpsed through water’ with an ancient landscape inhabited by pagan gods. Pavlyuk abandoned his studies at the St. Petersburg Military University to pursue a career as a poet, and was jailed as a result, prior to embarking on a life of rhyme. Pavlyuk’s work has been translated into several languages including English, French, Polish, Russian and Japanese. However, Pavlyuk remains rooted in Ukraine and remains one of Europe’s most versatile poets – quite literally: he recently delivered an entire reading stood on his head. These poems contain moments delicate as snowflakes: ‘The fragrance of crushed mint at dusk,/ The leaves yearning to fall/ Before the snow comes’. The sweet yearning of this poetry will remain with you long after you have turned the final page.
Author
Ihor Pavlyuk
Ihor Pavlyuk was born in the Volyn region of Ukraine in January 1967 and studied at the St Petersburg Military University, which he left in order to pursue his career as a writer. He was as a result sentenced to a period of hard labour in the Taiga working on what was literally a road to nowhere but regained his liberty in the chaos accompanying the fall of the Soviet Union. He was able subsequently to complete his education and become a Doctor of Social Communication. His numerous poetry collections include Islands of youth (Ukrainian Острови юності) (1990), Magma (Ukrainian Магма) (2005), Ukraine at smoke (Ukrainian Україна в диму) (2009), Masculine fortunetelling (Ukrainian Чоловічe ворожіння) (2013). His work has been translated into several languages including English, French, Polish, Russian and Japanese.
Translator
Steve Komarnyckyj
Steve Komarnyckyj is a British-Ukrainian poet and literary translator who maintains strong ties to Ukraine. His translations and poems have appeared in Poetry Salzburg Review, The North, and Modern Poetry in Translation. His selection of translations from Ihor Pavlyuk won an English PEN award in 2013. His first poetry collection, The August Rain (Kalyna Language Press, 2016), has been described by Sean Street as “the articulation of what it means to be human”. He is a co-director of Kalyna Language Press, an independent publisher of translated and original fiction and poetry. His work with KLP has featured in Index on Censorship, The Guardian and The Economist.
Published by
Waterloo Press, 2014
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Ihor Pavlyuk invites us to roam the forests of Ukraine with him while swigging vodka from a hip flask and watching pagan gods flicker among the birches. These poems combine beautifully-wrought metaphors, transforming a shooting star into ‘candlelight glimpsed through water’ with an ancient landscape inhabited by pagan gods. Pavlyuk abandoned his studies at the St. Petersburg Military University to pursue a career as a poet, and was jailed as a result, prior to embarking on a life of rhyme. Pavlyuk’s work has been translated into several languages including English, French, Polish, Russian and Japanese. However, Pavlyuk remains rooted in Ukraine and remains one of Europe’s most versatile poets – quite literally: he recently delivered an entire reading stood on his head. These poems contain moments delicate as snowflakes: ‘The fragrance of crushed mint at dusk,/ The leaves yearning to fall/ Before the snow comes’. The sweet yearning of this poetry will remain with you long after you have turned the final page.