oksana maksymchuk
STILL CITY: DIARY OF AN INVASION
The poems in this debut English-language collection meditate on the changing sense of reality, temporality, mortality, and intimacy in the face of a catastrophic event. While some of the poems have been composed in the months preceding the full-scale invasion of the poet’s homeland, others have emerged in its wake. Navigating between a chronicle, a chorus, and a collage, Still City reflects the lived experiences of liminality with urgency and intensity, offering different perspectives on the war and its aftermath. The collection engages a wide range of sources, including social media posts, news reports, witness accounts, recorded oral histories, photographs, drone video footage, intercepted communications, official documents, and songs, making sense of the transformations that war affects in individuals, families, and communities. Now ecstatic, now cathartic, these poems shine a light on survival, mourning, and hope through moments of terror and awe.
Praise for STILL CITY
Poetry collections in translation
Furious Harvests, a collection of striking poetry by Alex Averbuch, explores existential questions that war raises: from the Russian aggression against Ukraine currently taking place in Averbuch’s home region of Luhansk, to the events of World War II, including poems that incorporate historical letters of Jewish Holocaust survivors.
The Voices of Babyn Yar is a bilingual collection of poems dedicated to the Babyn Yar massacre of 1941. Artful and carefully intoned, the poems present the experiences of ordinary civilians from a first-person perspective to an effect that is simultaneously immersive and estranging. Conceived as a tribute to the fallen, the book also raises challenging questions about memory, responsibility, and honoring those who had witnessed an evil that, some may say, verges on the unspeakable.
Read our translators' introduction to Marianna Kiyanovska, The Voices of Babyn Yar. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute/Harvard University Press, 2022.
Apricots of Donbas is a bilingual collection of poetry by Lyuba Yakimchuk, one of Ukraine’s most distinguished younger poets. Reflecting the complex emotional experiences of a civilian witnessing a gradual disintegration of her familiar surroundings, Yakimchuk’s poetry is versatile, ranging from sumptuous verses about the urgency of erotic desire in a war-torn city to imitations of child-like babbling about the tools and toys of military combat. Playfulness in the face of catastrophe is a distinctive feature of Yakimchuk’s voice, evoking the legacy of the Ukrainian Futurists of the 1920s.
Read our introduction to Lyuba Yakimchuk, Apricots of Donbas. Sandpoint: Lost Horse Press, 2021.
How does one find words to write about war? The anthology Words for War: New Poems from Ukraine brings together some of the most compelling poetic voices from different regions of Ukraine. Young and old, female and male, somber and ironic, tragic and playful, filled with extraordinary terror and ordinary human delights, the voices recreate the human sounds of war in its tragic complexity.
Read our editorial preface to Words for War: New Poems from Ukraine. Boston: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute/Academic Studies Press, 2017.
Praise for Words for War
Stephanie Sandler
Harvard University
"We necessarily come to these poems in a time of war, and that war’s grotesque political dimensions and endless violence are painfully felt on these pages. But these are poems that should command our attention even in a time of peace, should it ever come to our troubled planet: these are poems in which the spirit of creative imagination, free expression, emotional clarity, and ethical courage reigns supreme."
Reception
Words for War
Ian Ross Singleton, review of Words for War, Asymptote, April 21, 2022.
Robert Clarke, review of Words for War, Culture and Dialogue 10.1 (2022): 95-98.
Roman Ivashkiv, review of Words for War, East/West: Journal of Ukrainian Studies 6 (2019): 217-220.
Highlighted, featured, or recommended by publications including The New York Times, The Paris Review, LitHub,The National Translation Month, NYMag, and many others.
Performances, readings, and events focused on poems from Words for War include the Royal Court Theater (2017, 2022), London Design Biennale, and over three dozen university and public venues.
Apricots of Donbas
Elizabeth Jones, review of Apricots of Donbas by Lyuba Yakimchuk, EuropeNow, February 21, 2023.
Gabriella Reznowski, review of Apricots of Donbas by Lyuba Yakimchuk, Slavic and East European Information Resources, 23.4 (2022): 474-475.
Maria Rewakowicz, review of Apricots of Donbas by Lyuba Yakimchuk, Los Angeles Review of Books, February 2022.
Layla Benitez-James, review of Apricots of Donbas by Lyuba Yakimchuk, Poetry Foundation, November 2021.
Highlighted, featured, or recommended by publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Coda Story, Medium, The New Statesman, LitHub, The National Translation Month, The National Poetry Month, Academy of American Poets, Tablet Mag, and many others.
Performances, readings, and events focused on poems from Apricots of Donbas include the Grammy Awards Ceremony (April 3, 2022), Words Without Borders Gala, and over three dozen literary festivals and university and public venues.
The Voices of Babyn Yar
Amelia Glaser, “We All Died Again in Babyn Yar,” The Jewish Renaissance, Spring 2022.
Winner of the 2023 AAUS Translation Prize, American Association for Ukrainian Studies.
Noted by the jury: "Oksana Maksymchuk and Max Rosochinsky’s translations are English-language poems in their own right. Their translations read grounded and authentic; the language is textured and fine-tuned. Of significance is this collection’s contribution to the multi-faceted voices—or “transmissions” as specified by the translators in their preface— of origin which bear witness. Add to that their haunting, evocative power and the general importance of the subject matter makes for an excellent choice" (Dzvinia Orlowsky, Ali Kinsella, Olga Livshin).
Highlighted, featured, or recommended by venues including CBC, BBC, Orion Magazine, and others.
Performances, readings, and events focused on poems from The Voices of Babyn Yar include the 2019 PEN World Voices Festival, 2022 Zbigniew Herbert Award Ceremony, and over a dozen university and public venues.
POETRY COLLECTIONS IN UKRAINIAN
Lovy. Kyiv: Smoloskyp Press, 2008
Introduction by Kost Moskalets
Art by Ivan Marchuk
Praise
Поезія Оксани Максимчук пізнає світ у його перетіканнях, притягуваннях та відштовхуваннях. Видиме — знак прихованого. Міфологічне повсюдно присутнє. Витончене, інтригуюче поєднання недомовленого і явленого в мові. Шляхетна тональність, стримане інтонування.
—Віктор Неборак
Поетичний світ Оксани Максимчук перебуває у процесі становлення та самотворення: із перепадами голосу і віддиху, із напливами й скрешеннями різнорівневих і різнопорядкових образів, — і в цьому його особливий, своїстий чар: читача тут запрошують напряму долучитись до одної з найцікавіших культурних таємниць на землі — народження поета.
—Оксана Забужко
Xenia. Lviv: Piramida Publishers, 2005
Introduction by Valeriy Shevchuk
Art by Ivan Ostafiychuk
Praise
Дивуюся, як ця юна поетка буквально за рік-два вирвалась з тугої інтимно-еротичної оболонки у широко манливий світ неосяжної душі — усіх почувань, переживань, мрій, стверджуючи, що він і є світом поезії. А завдяки таланту це і вводить поетку в контекст як класичної, так і модерної нашої поезії.
—Ігор Калинець
Найцінніші дарунки, «ксенії», ще античність наголошувала, — поетичні. Мірою цінності й у «Ксеніях» Оксани Максимчук є те, що визріває з любові, — сердечність, щирість, щедрість таланту: вміння дивитися очима душі, а побаченому, це вже Божий дар, давати нове життя — у Слові. Такий талант, у парі з працею, обіцяє нові гостинці («ксеній» — знак гостинності), що так потрібні спраглому душевного тепла й світла нинішньому світові.
—Андрій Содомора