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.
