Skip to content
  • Common Currency
  • Campaigns
    • PENWrites
    • Writers at Risk
    • Writers in Residence
    • Free speech in the UK
  • News
  • Events
  • Translation
    • PEN Translates
    • PEN Transmissions
    • International Translation Day
    • The World Bookshelf
      • Books
      • Authors
      • Translators
    • PEN Presents
      • Issues
      • Books
      • Apply to PEN Presents
  • Prizes
    • PEN Pinter Prize
    • PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize
  • Donate
  • Join
Home > Translation > The World Bookshelf > Books > The Poetry of Bohdan Ihor Antonych

The Poetry of Bohdan Ihor Antonych

Night Music is a selection of Bohdan Ihor Antonych’s poems rendered into English by British Ukrainian poet Steve Komarnyckyj. Antonych was one of the most gifted European poets of last century. His work has a fevered energetic imagery reminiscent of Dylan Thomas. Moss warms “like cat fur”, and the nocturnal forest becomes an orchestra playing music that manifests itself as light. Antonych’s death deprived Europe of one of the greatest talents of his generation. His work, with its mystic overtones, was censored by the Soviets and consequently ignored in the English speaking world. Steve Komarnyckyj’s poetic translations capture much of the febrile inventiveness of this crazy pagan poet and will captivate English readers.

You grow by the edge of the road
A crimson bush amidst silence,
Broken only by an antelope,
A slender legged loner seeking
A timid roe.

Author

Bohdan Ihor Antonych

Bohdan Ihor Antonych

Books

The Poetry of Bohdan Ihor Antonych

Bohdan Ihor Antonych (1909 – 1937) took the folklore language and traditions of the Lemke region, which was part of Poland between the first and second world wars, and transplanted them into literary Ukrainian. The Lemke were a Ukrainian mountain people whose culture and traditions were rooted in crop cycles and pagan mythology and, in Antonych’s work, the boundaries between the narrator, the natural world and the music of the poems become blurred within an ecstatic pagan celebration of life.

He was only 27 when he died, but he seems to have lived several lives in one lifetime, producing six collections of poetry, reams of prose, an opera libretto, a novella and an unfinished novel, as well as editing a couple of journals. His legacy deserves a new audience among readers of English language poetry.

Translator

Steve Komarnyckyj

Steve Komarnyckyj

Books

A Flight Over the Black Sea

The Poetry of Bohdan Ihor Antonych

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

Kalyna Language Press, 2016

Share

Night Music is a selection of Bohdan Ihor Antonych’s poems rendered into English by British Ukrainian poet Steve Komarnyckyj. Antonych was one of the most gifted European poets of last century. His work has a fevered energetic imagery reminiscent of Dylan Thomas. Moss warms “like cat fur”, and the nocturnal forest becomes an orchestra playing music that manifests itself as light. Antonych’s death deprived Europe of one of the greatest talents of his generation. His work, with its mystic overtones, was censored by the Soviets and consequently ignored in the English speaking world. Steve Komarnyckyj’s poetic translations capture much of the febrile inventiveness of this crazy pagan poet and will captivate English readers.

You grow by the edge of the road
A crimson bush amidst silence,
Broken only by an antelope,
A slender legged loner seeking
A timid roe.

Join our mailing list

Sign up to receive the latest English PEN news and events.

SIGN UP
  • About
  • Privacy
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Partners
  • Jobs
  • Contact us

With thanks to our Core Funders

©1921 - 2023

English PEN is a company limited by guarantee number 5747142 (England & Wales) and a registered charity, number 1125610.

We use cookies to help us improve your experience on our website. By closing this notification or interacting with the website you agree to our use of cookies. ACCEPT Find out more
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT