Product Description

Oleh Lysheha is considered the "poets' poet" of contemporary Ukraine. A dissident and iconoclast, he was forbidden to publish in the Soviet Union from 1972 to 1988. Since then, his reputation has steadily grown to legendary proportions. His work is informed by transcendentalism and Zen-like introspection, with meditations on the essence of the human experience and man's place in nature. James Brasfield studied poetry and translation with Joseph Brodsky, Derek Walcott, Daniel Halpern, and other luminaries. He served as an editorial assistant for poetry at The Paris Review, and now teaches English at Pennsylvania State University. The Collected Poems here include facing- page English and Ukrainian versions of selected poems and a play, "Friend Li Po. Brother Tu Fu." It represents a rare example of translations that are as beautiful as the original poetry and poems that anyone interested in the written word will appreciate.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2729927 in Books
• Published on: 1999-12-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 160 pages

Review
Out of a silence imposed by history and ignorance comes the shattering voice of Oleh Lysheha. Ukraine has its overdue political autonomy, and now, with these poems and play, an equally overdue rendition of Ukrainian life, love, and stalwart hope. Lysheha's "Swan"--"My God, I'm vanishing.."--alone makes the book a treasure. This work offers American readers in particular not just a new voice, but, even in translation, a new language, a new way of seeing. Lysheha speaks through indirection, and observes through the sides of his eyes, but the effect is a set of blows to the heart, which leave one more alive, not less.
--James Carroll, author of An American Requiem: God, My Father, and the War that Came between Us

Oleh Lysheha joins a small and unlikely company of poets--which includes Montale, Lawrence, Rilke, and Simic--as a metaphysician of the natural world who finds hidden openings through which the poet passes beyond himself into the outer dark. His travels through the door beyond the still point of our turning world refresh our faith in the mystery.
--Askold Melnyczuk, author of What is Told

Psychologically inward, phantasmagoric, Oleh Lysheha's poems are darkly comic fables about the risks, pleasures, and limitations of trying to perceive the Sublime in Nature. What is original in his poems is his ironic understanding of how absurd gestures like sitting on an ant hole are as likely to provoke "visionary hours" as the contemplation of "one of those heavenly days which cannot die." His interest in Nature is decidedly lowercase--nature in its specific operations, and not as a springboard for metaphysics. An alder by a stream may become suggestive of symbolic meaning, but the poet never insists. This modesty of scope shouldn't be mistaken for modesty of ambition: his poems are quirky, uncompromising, full of unexpected dips and veers of sensibility.
--Tom Sleigh, author of The Dreamhouse

Customer Reviews

Some nice imagery but elusive and vague
Could it be the translation that makes these poems difficult to follow? I really wanted to like them, but the impression I have is of some brilliant imagery in otherwise meandering poems. Maybe I needed to understand Ukrainian culture to get more of the references, but I think most English-language readers are going to be disappointed.

One strange thing about the book is the use of a double period (..) to form breaks. They occur in both the Ukrainian and English translations but are never explained in the introductory material.

One of my favorite poems is "Song 551" that starts with the wonderful lines:

Before it's too late -- knock your head against the ice.
Before it's too late
Break through, look..
You will see a miraculous world..

"Song 352" contains the delightful image of "the poor hut of the horseradish" in the farthest corner of the snow-bound garden.

The Maiden in the play "Friend Li Po, Brother Tu Fu" sings a beautiful song:

Come in, my love, Oh kiss me..
Your kiss will change the world into heavens..
Come in, my love, don't be afraid of anyone,
Come in, my love, Oh kiss me..

Outside of a few few delicious moments like these, reading this poetry is more a chore than a joy. In the Foreword, George Grabowicz says that "Lysheha's is an elusive kind of poetry -- which may partially explain the reluctance, or inability, of critics to engage it." Elusive is a good word to describe this poetry. I can see why the critics are reluctant.

On the back cover of the book, the publisher quotes James Carroll who says that the poem "Swan" alone makes the book a treasure. He goes on to say that "Lysheha speaks through indirection..." which to me makes the poems difficult and tedious. Here is the beginning of "Swan":

My God, I'm vanishing..
This road won't guide me anymore..
I'm not so drunk..
Moon, don't go..
I appear from behind a pine -- you hide..
I step into shadow -- you appear..
I run -- already you are behind me..
I stop -- you're gone..
Only the dark pines..
I hide behind a trunk -- again, you're alone..
I am -- you are elsewhere..
Absent..
Absent..
I am..
Elsewhere..
I am.. absent..

The poem goes on in similar fashion with double periods and vague imagery for seven pages. After reading this for any length of time I find that I too want to be absent.. from this book..