New York Elegies: Ukrainian Poems on the City

by Ostap Kin (Editor)

Overview

New York Elegies attempts to demonstrate how descriptions and evocations of New York City are connected to various stylistic modes and topical questions urgent to Ukrainian poetry throughout its development. The collection thus gives readers the opportunity to view New York through various poetic and stylistic lenses. Ukrainian poets connected themselves to a powerful myth of New York, the myth of urban modernity and problematic vitality. The city of exiles and outsiders sees itself reflected in the mirror that newcomers and exiles created. By adding new voices and layers to this amalgam, it is possible to observe the expanded picture of this worldly poetic city.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781618118912
Publisher:	Academic Studies Press
Publication date:	02/19/2019
Series:	Ukrainian Studies
Pages:	330
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x (d)

About the Author

Ostap Kin is an archivist and literary researcher. He co-translated The Maidan After Hours (2017), a chapbook by Vasyl Lozynsky and Songs for a Dead Rooster (forthcoming with Lost Horse Press), a collection of poems by Yuri Andrukhovych.

Table of Contents

“INTRODUCTION: Mapping the Poetry of Ukrainian New York”

POEMS

Part I: 1920s-1930s

Mykhail Semenko
Каблепоема №2
Cablepoem, No. 2 (Tran. by Ostap Kin and Marlow Davis)
Каблепоема №6
Cablepoem, No. 6 (Tran. by Ostap Kin and Marlow Davis)
Система
System (Tran. Ostap Kin and Marlow Davis)
Решта
The Rest (Tran. Ostap Kin and Ali Kinsella)

Oleksa Slisarenko
Уот Уітмен
Walt Whitman (Tran. Ostap Kin and Ali Kinsella)

Mykola Tarnovsky
Subway
Subway (Tran. Abbey Fenbert)
На П’ятій Авеню
On Fifth Avenue (Tran. Abbey Fenbert)
У місті, де жив Уот Уітмен
In The City Where Walt Whitman Lived (Tran. Abbey Fenbert)

Kasandryn
Times Square
Times Square (Tran. Abbey Fenbert)

M. Pilny
Вже досить
Enough Already (Tran. Abbey Fenbert)

V. Rudeychuk
Ню Йорк
New York (Tran. by Abbey Fenbert)

Ivan Kulyk
Чорна епопея (уривок)
From the Black Epos (Tran. Alexander Motyl)

Part II: 1940s-1980s

Andriy Malyshko
Маяковський в Америці
Mayakovsky in America (Tran. Alexander Motyl)

Yevhen Malanyuk
Ані вершин, ані низин…
Untitled (Tran. Alexander Motyl)
Ньюйоркські стенограми
New York Shorthand (Tran. Alexander Motyl)
Ні, не пустеля і намет…
[No, neither desert, nor tent…] (Tran. Alexander Motyl)
Думи
Thoughts (Tran. Alexander Motyl)
Дні
Days (Tran. Alexander Motyl)
Одного дня
One Day (Tran. Alexander Motyl)

Vadym Lesych
Нью-Йоркські строфи
New York Verses (Tran. Olga Gerasymiv with Oleksandr Fraze-Frazenko)
гарлем
ніч (І)
інтермеццо (ІІ)
день (ІІІ)
Harlem (Tran. Olga Gerasymiv)
night intermezzo day
Люди осілі
The Settled People (Tran. Olga Gerasymiv)
Ніч на Іст-Бронксі
A Night in East Bronx (Tran. Olga Gerasymiv)

Yuri Kosach
Мангаттен, 103-тя вулиця
Manhattan, 103rd Street (Tran. Ali Kinsella)
Нью-Йоркська елегія
New York Elegy (Tran. Ali Kinsella)
Бродвей
Broadway (Tran. Ali Kinsella)
Авеню діамантів
Diamond District (Tran. Ali Kinsella)
З пісень Гарлему
From the Song of Harlem (Tran. Ali Kinsella)
Балада про Золотий Бродвей
Ballad of Golden Broadway (Tran. Ali Kinsella)

Yuriy Tarnawsky

Ода до кафе
Ode to a Café (Trans. by the author)
Неділі
Sundays (Trans. by the author)
Любовний вірш
Love Poem (Trans. by the author)
Приїзд ІV
Arrival IV (Trans. by the author)
Кінець світу
End of the World (Trans. by the author)
Сссмерть
Dddeath (Trans. by the author)

Bohdan Rubchak
Бездомний
Homeless (Tran. Olga Gerasymiv)

Bohdan Boychuk
Негр сидить посередині дороги і б’є у барабан
A Negro Sits in the Middle of the Road and Beats a Drum (Tran. Anand Dibble)
Вірші про місто
City Verses (Tran. Anand Dibble)
Любов у трьох часах (уривки)
Три
Одинадцять
From Three Dimentional Love
Three (Tran. Mark Rudman and the Author)
Eleven (Tran. Mark Rudman and the Author)
Ланчонетний триптих
Luncheonette Triptych (Tran. Anand Dibble)
Нью-Йоркська елегія
New York Elegy (Tran. Anand Dibble)

Leonid Lyman

Осінь у Бронкспарку
Autumn in a Bronx Park (Tran. Ostap Kin and Ali Kinsella)

Dima
Вечірній Бродвей
Broadway in the Evening (Tran. Ostap Kin and Ali Kinsella)
Нью-йоркська ніч
New York Night (Tran. Ostap Kin and Ali Kinsella)

Dmytro Pavlychko
Повітря Нью-Йорка
New York’s Air (Tran. Alexander Motyl)

Ivan Drach
Вічний блюз
Eternal Blues (Tran. Ostap Kin and Ali Kinsella)
Двоє ввечері пішки
Two Walk in the Evening (Tran. Ostap Kin and Ali Kinsella)
Нью-Йорк в стилі кубізму
New York in the Cubist Style (Tran. Ostap Kin and Ali Kinsella)
Дмитрові Павличку (уривок)
From For Dmytro Pavlychko (Tran. Ostap Kin and Ali Kinsella)

Lida Palij
Спекотливий день в Ню-Йорку
A Hot Day in New York (Tran. Ostap Kin and Ali Kinsella)

Borys Oliynyk
Від білої хати до Білого дому...
1.Знайомство
2. Горить Нью-Йорк
4. Прометей приручений
5. Та від Білої хати...
From the White Home to the White House (Tran. Ali Kinsella)
1. Getting Acquainted
2. New York Burns
4. Prometheus Doomed
5. From the White House

Part III: 1991-2016

Abram Katsnelson
Уолл-Стріт
Wall Street (Tran. Ostap Kin and Ali Kinsella)
На Бродвеї
On Broadway (Tran. Ostap Kin and Ali Kinsella)

Yuri Andrukhovych
Bombing New York City
Bombing New York City (Tran. Sarah Luczaj)

Oksana Zabuzhko
New York, NY
New York, NY (Tran. Ostap Kin and Ali Kinsella)

Serhiy Zhadan
Нью-Йорк – факін сіті
New York Fuckin’ City (Tran. Virlana Tkacz and Wanda Phills)
“І найменша дівчинка в Чайна-тауні…”
[And the smallest girl in Chinatown…] (Tran. Ostap Kin)

Vasyl Makhno
New York Postcard to Bohdan Zadura (Tran. Luba Gawur)
Coffee in Starbucks (Tran. Michael Naydan)
Federico Garcia Lorca (Tran. Orest Popovych)
A Farewell to Brooklyn (Tran. Orest Popovych)
Brooklyn Elegy (Tran. Orest Popovych)
Staten Island (Tran. Orest Popovych)

Maryana Savka
Eleventh Street (Tran. Ostap Kin and Ali Kinsella)

Oksana Lutsyshyna

“Мій друг Стефан у вельветовому піджаку фотографується…”
[My friend Stefan…] (Tran. the Author and Ali Kinsella)

Kateryna Babkina
Знеболювальні і снодійні
Painkillers and Sleeping Pills (Tran. Virlana Tkacz and Wanda Phills)

Iryna Shuvalova
велика риба та інші мости
учора містом ходила велика риба
ти розгойдуєшся – й переступаєш поріг
із чого складається місто?
якщо вийти за двері
Big fish and other bridges (Tran. Olena Jennings)
1. yesterday a big fish walked through the city
2. gathering momentum – you cross the threshold
3. what is the city made from?
4. if we were to walk out the door

Iryna Vikyrchak
Р.А.
R.A. (Tran. Ostap Kin and Ali Kinsella)
Сезонна
Seasonal (Tran. Ostap Kin and Ali Kinsella)

Oleksandr Fraze-Frazenko
в Maikley
At Maikley’s Café (Tran. Olga Gerasymiv)

Yulia Musakovska
“Тунелями білого кахлю курсують жовті рибини…”
[In tunnels of white…] (Tran. Olga Gerasymiv)

Vasyl Lozynsky
Нью-Йорк
New York (Tran. Ostap Kin and Ali Kinsella)

Olha Fraze-Frazenko
Грудень
December (Tran. Ostap Kin and Ali Kinsella)

NOTES
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF PUBLICATION IN UKRAINIAN
PRIOR PUBLICATIONS IN ENGLISH TRANSLATION
POETS
TRANSLATORS

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“New York Elegies offers an astonishing richness of poems born out of the encounter between the city and several outstanding Ukrainian poets. It also provides a historical context for their voices and locates them in the Ukrainian literary tradition. An excellent book for poetry lovers, New York aficionados and academic scholars.” —Irena Grudzińska-Gross, Princeton University

“While participating in the artistic imagining of NYC, the Ukrainian voices gathered here themselves originate from a place that has been imagined as wild, mystical and political. Th e New York of these poems is a space of meditation on identity, solitude and history. One might predict the overreaching infl uence of Whitman and Mayakovsky, but would be enriched by discovering the presence of James Baldwin and the voices of Harlem Renaissance.” —Valzhyna Mort, poet, author of Factory of Tears and Collected Body


“Ukrainians are coming! Ukrainians are coming! Actually they have been here all along. What good luck to have this comprehensive, all-embracing anthology, ranging from 20th century classics of Ukrainian poetry to our own contemporaries.
The incredible gift of this book is the chance to see ourselves through the eyes of poets of a different tradition. We have oft en been changed by observing how artists from other traditions see us. Here, too, one thinks of Lorka’s Poet in New York as one reads: ‘like blood / coming / out of vein / the car / tumbles along / the concrete.’
Here is the New York City we know nothing about—and yet it tells us so much about ourselves in ‘the canyons of the city,’ where ‘the brownstones / breathe fish and garlic / on each other.’
As a reader, I am especially grateful to Ostap Kin for his superior introduction and excellent selections of poems herein. It is the book that offers us many discoveries.” —Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic and Dancing in Odessa