Natalka Bilotserkivets - Griffin Poetry Prize

Natalka Bilotserkivets has published five volumes of poetry. Her work, known for lyricism and the quiet power of despair, became a hallmark of Ukraine’s literary life of the 1980s and 1990s. The collections Allergy and Central Hotel were Books of the Year in 2000 and 2004, respectively. Still, the majority of her oeuvre remains unknown in the West. She lives and works in Kyiv.

Eccentric Days of Hope and Sorrow 2022 Shortlist

Lost Horse Press, USA

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Judges’ Citation

The lyrical voice of Natalka Bilotserkivets rings, strong and pure, through several generations of Ukrainian poetry, from the Soviet censorship and Chornobyl, to the joys and losses of post-independence.

The lyrical voice of Natalka Bilotserkivets rings, strong and pure, through several generations of Ukrainian poetry, from the Soviet censorship and Chornobyl, to the joys and losses of post-independence. In Eccentric Days of Hope and Sorrow we get to witness a lifelong bewilderment that transforms the historical into the intimate, with tender and meticulous precision. These poems balance thought and emotion on the scales of linguistic music, beautifully captured in English by Ali Kinsella and Dzvinia Orlowsky. Bilotserkivets is a poet capable of taking us from the 20^th into the 21^st century, through the darkness of old and new losses, with the strength refined into grace.

Selected poems
by Natalka Bilotserkivets

Life is simple and quiet,

and I love it.

Books surround me

like grass in the grove.

Like chamomile

to my lips,

soothing and green,

the word between words.

Untitled

Dzvinia Orlowsky & Ali Kinsella, translation from
the Ukrainian written by Natalka Bilotserkivets

about this poem

You forget the lines smells colors and sounds
sight weakens hearing fades simple pleasures pass
you lift your face and hands toward your soul
but to high and unreachable summits it soars

what remains is only the depot the last stop
the gray foam of goodbyes lathers and swells
already it washes over my naked palms
its awful sweet warmth seeps into my mouth
love alone remains though better off gone

in a provincial bed I cried till exhausted
through the window a scraggly rose-colored lilac spied
the train moved on spent lovers stared
at the dirty shelf heaving beneath your flesh
outside a depot’s spring passed grew quiet

we’ll not die in Paris I know now for sure
but in a sweat and tear-stained provincial bed
no one will serve us our cognac I know
we won’t be saved by kisses
under the Pont Mirabeau murky circles won’t fade

too bitter we cried abused nature
we loved too fiercely
our lovers shamed
too many poems we wrote
disregarding poets
they’ll not let us die in Paris
and the alluring water
under the Pont Mirabeau
will be encircled with barricades

Translated by Dzvinia Orlowsky

We’ll Not Die in Paris

Dzvinia Orlowsky, translation from
the original written by Natalka Bilotserkivets

about this poem

There’s a peaceful land of maidens crystal-pure,

where children are as unbreakable as steel

where snake-victors kneel and drink

the wine of angels in silent, frozen halls.

There’s a peaceful land of grasses

where the dragon sings for eternal hours.

He waits, his wise head bowed,

powerful wings embroidered with flowers.

Monks dwell in cells among burgundy rocks.

Fire burns inside their stone bowls.

And the wine of angels can’t been tasted or seen

like tears in a river or in our dead souls.

Here no victories or failures prevail.

The scorpion sleeps at the foot of the rhododendron.

And in the window’s light—a sacred darkness,

like writing on a scorpion’s scales.

Wine of Angels

Dzvinia Orlowsky, translation from
the Ukrainian written by Natalka Bilotserkivets

about this poem

Eccentric Days of Hope and Sorrow 2022 Shortlist

Judges’ Citation

Selected poemsby Natalka Bilotserkivets

Selected poems
by Natalka Bilotserkivets