An introduction to an original poetic voice from eastern Ukraine with deep roots in the unique cultural landscape of post-Soviet devastation
"Everyone can find something, if they only look ...carefully," reads one of the memorable lines from this first collection of poems in English by the world†'renowned Ukrainian author Serhiy Zhadan. These robust and accessible narrative poems feature gutsy portraits of life on wartorn and poverty-ravaged streets, where children tally the number of local deaths, where mothers live with low expectations, and where romance lives like a remote memory. In the tradition of Tom Waits, Charles Bukowski, and William S. Burroughs, Zhadan creates a new poetics of loss, a daily crusade of testimonial, a final witness of abandoned lives in a claustrophobic universe where "every year there's less and less air." Yet despite the grimness of these portraits, Zhadan's poems are familiar and enchanting, lit by the magic of everyday detail, leaving readers with a sense of hope, knowing that the will of a people "will never let it be / like it was before."
This is a book of encounters. Part memoir, part essay, and partly a guide to maximizing your capacity for fulfillment and expression,The Poetry of Everyday Lifetaps into the artistic side of what we ...often take for granted: the stories we tell, the people we love, the metaphors used by scientists, even our sex lives. A folklorist, writer, and cultural activist, Steve Zeitlin explores how poems serve us in daily life and how they are used in times of personal and national crisis. In the first book to bring together the perspectives of folklore and creative writing, Zeitlin explores meaning and experience, covering topics ranging from poetry in the life cycle to the contemporary uses of ancient myths.
"This convergence of poetry and folklore," he suggests, "gives birth to something new: a new way of seeing ourselves, and a new way of being in the world." Written with humor and insight, the book introduces readers to the many eccentric and visionary characters Zeitlin has met in his career as a folklorist. Covering topics from Ping-Pong to cave paintings, from family poetry nights to delectable dishes at his favorite ethnic restaurants,The Poetry of Everyday Lifewill inspire readers to expand their consciousness of the beauty that resides in everyday things and to use creative expression to engage and animate that beauty toward living a more fulfilling awakened life, full of laughter. To live a creative life is the best way to engage with the beauty of the everyday.
FOREWORD Bob Holman
What We Live For, What We Die For,
04/2019
Book Chapter
I thought this would be simple enough—here at last! a Horn of Plenty of poems by Serhiy Zhadan, the “Rock-Star poet,” “poet laureate of Eastern Ukraine,” Ukraine’s “most famous counterculture ...writer,” as labeled by the New York Times, the New Yorker, and the London Review of Books.
After all, I have performed with Zhadan in Ukraine, read the English translations at his readings in the United States, and participated in theatricalizations of his words for the Yara Arts Group, the Ukrainian-U.S. theater company led by Virlana Tkacz, one of the superb translators of this volume (the other, Wanda Phipps,
