He is the holder of two PEN awards and a highly regarded English language poet whose work has been described as articulating “what it means to be human” (Sean Street). Stephen Komarnyckyj‘s literary translations and poems have appeared in Index on Censorship, Modern Poetry in Translation and many other journals. Her work reminds us that love, seemingly vulnerable, will persist and overcome fear. She once took a bouquet into the trial of a dissident and flung it into the court during the proceedings: the officials and secret police dived for cover thinking it was a bomb. Kostenko is one of a generation of writers known as the “Sixtiers” who challenged Soviet oppression of Ukrainian culture during the decade of the Beatles and Flower Power. These two poems of love and memory speak to emotions that will transcend the war. Kostenko is a poet who is both highly literary, mixing references to Shakespeare and Gogol in her work, but also very honest and accessible. It’s unlikely that this is poetic licence. She wrote her first verse on the walls of a dug-out in World War 2 according to one of her own poems. Lina Kostenko was born into a family of teachers on 19 March 1930 in Rzhyshchiv, Ukraine. Whitened in these dark days from elsewhere. That which is not said unsaid will remain. Like the soft sound of belling mountain stream
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