Poems by Tania Rodionova
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January 24, right a month before the War
every day I don’t read news, I don’t read news deliberately, and when something arrives, it knocks on the head, I still don’t read news. I work every day, even on weekends, work every day not to think of anything, I work overtime again not to... I work every day. I’m planning projects in Kharkiv and Kyiv, joking that I’ve moved to the Western Ukraine in time, I’m thinking of my friends in Kyiv, my friends in Kharkiv, I’m planning projects being aware of all the risks. my anxiety is with me instead of a bag, instead of a backpack, always behind my back, while you go, you don’t feel it, when you stop, your shoulders hurt. March 4, 9th day of War comment ça va aujourd'hui? my French friend writes to me. and I don’t know what to say, don’t understand what I feel at all. comment ça va aujourd'hui? they are bombing Kyiv, Kharkiv, Kherson, smashing houses, blocks of flats, schools, hospitals, two thousands are dead… [I’m babbling some general agenda for somewhere there in France everything was clear, and only with the third message I find myself not answering how I actually am aujourd'hui.] my dear French friend, I don't know... either how I am, or what the day is today, cause you know they are now all the same. I’m okay, I’m relatively safe, just running to the shelter from time to time, jumping at phantom sirens, and have my backpack ready to go. today it’s been already a week since my mornings have been starting with news and a roll-call across cities with a question: how are you? aujourd'hui I’ve almost got used to this hell, indeed, I even have my routine, and I’m afraid of getting used to it. comment ça va aujourd'hui? I don't know... but these people are incredible and I do believe we shall win. |
Tania Rodionova is a translator, editor, poet, and cultural manager.
She is the initiator of the VERBatsiya translation group and director of the TRANSLATORIUM Literary and Translation Festival. Her published translations include Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning by Timothy Snyder (MEDUSA, 2017), Artists and Curators as Authors – Competitors, Collaborators, or Team-workers? by Dorothee Richter (IST Publishing, 2018), Where Curating Is: the artist-as-curator and the curator-as-artist in Ukraine from the 1980s to the 2010s by Kateryna Nosko and Valeriya Luk’yanets (IST Publishing, 2018), and Performing the Common City by Pascal Gielen (IST Publishing, 2019). At present she is actively engaged in translating Ukrainian war poetry into English. |
