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Oksana Maksymchuk, Max Rosochinsky: Words for War (2018, Academic Studies Press) 3 stars

"The armed conflict in the east of Ukraine brought about an emergence of a distinctive …

A war not a war

3 stars

Reading this collection of poems in parallell with the constant newsflow from Russia's invasive war in Ukraine does affect my understanding of it. The words are undoubtedly accompanied by televised images, realizing the depicted places in ways far surpassing my own imagination.

This of course make it difficult to provide a nuanced review. How do I disregard the current siege of Marioupol [I read the book in may 2022 -Janne] to evaluate the flow and sincerity of Boris Khersonsky's poems? How can I not weave in the constant flow of reported atrocities while reading Borys Humenyuk's depiction of blood red seagulls / dropping pieces of human flesh / like rain / stolen from the battlefield?

Some of the poems - as well as individual verses and lines - I'll carry with me as the war rages on. Others, I have to confess, weren't in my taste. But the overall feeling of being in a war that isn't a war - a waiting filled with everything but waiting - might be my main takeaway from this collection of poems.

And just like Oksana Maksymchuk and Max Rosochinsky talk about in the preface, maybe the poetic perspective has the ability to provide a more human take on the order of things in a time and a place where the things aren't in order?

@Janne well, you've made me want to go & find a copy. I see Maksymchuk & Rosochinsky have just translated another difficult (?) volume, The Voices of Babyn Yar by Marianna Kiyanovska.

In the UK, Brexit has stoked a sentimental jingoism about the World Wars which peaks every November with, among other annoyances, the boosting of bad poetry. I keep a personal anthology of good war poems as an antidote.