VERSEVILLE
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Contact
    • Media Coverages
    • Copyright Notice
    • VerseVille Blog
  • Submissions
    • Poetry and Essays Guidelines
    • Book Review Guidelines
    • Research Series Guidelines
  • Masthead
  • Editions
    • 2011 Issues >
      • ISSUE-XIV November 2011
    • 2012 Issues >
      • ISSUE-XV March 2012
      • ISSUE-XVI July 2012
      • ISSUE-XVII November 2012
    • 2013 Issues >
      • ISSUE-XVIII April 2013
      • ISSUE XIX November 2013
    • 2014 Issues >
      • ISSUE XX May 2014
    • 2015 Issues >
      • ISSUE XXI February 2015
      • Contemporary Indian English Poetry ISSUE XXII November 2015
    • 2016 Issues >
      • ISSUE XXIII August 2016
      • Poetry From Ireland ISSUE XXIV December 2016
    • 2017 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXV August 2017
      • ISSUE XXVI December 2017
    • 2018 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXVII July 2018
      • ISSUE XXVIII November 2018
    • 2019 Issues >
      • ISSUE XXIX July 2019
    • 2020 ISSUES >
      • Issue XXX February 2020
      • ISSUE XXXI December 2020
    • 2021 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXXII August 2021
    • 2022 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXXIII June 2022
      • ISSUE XXXIV December 2022
  • Collaborations
    • Macedonian Collaboration
    • Collaboration with Dutch Foundation for Literature
  • Interviews
  • Prose on Poetry and Poets
    • 2010-2013 >
      • Sylvia Plath by Dr. Nidhi Mehta >
        • Chapter-1(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-2(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-3(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-4(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-5(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-6(Sylvia Plath)
      • Prose Poems of Tagore by Dr. Bina Biswas >
        • Chapter-1(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-2(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-3(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-4(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-5(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-6(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-7(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-8(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-9(Rabindranath Tagore)
      • Kazi Nazrul Islam by Dr. Shamenaz Shaikh >
        • Chapter 1(Nazrul Islam)
        • Chapter 2(Nazrul Islam)
        • Chapter 3(Nazrul Islam)
      • Kabir's Poetry by Dr. Anshu Pandey >
        • Chapter 1(Kabir's Poetry)
        • Chapter 2(Kabir's Poetry)
        • Chapter 3(Kabir's Poetry)
      • My mind's not right by Dr. Vicky Gilpin >
        • Chapter- 1 Dr. Vicky Gilpin
        • Chapter-2 Dr. Vicky Gilpin
        • Chapter-3 Dr. Vicky Gilpin
        • Chapter-4 Dr. Vicky Gilpin
      • On Poetry & Poets by Abhay K.
      • Poetry of Kamla Das –A True Voice Of Bourgeoisie Women In India by Dr.Shikha Saxena
      • Identity Issues in the Poetry of Nissim Ezekiel by Dr.Arvind Nawale & Prashant Mothe*
      • Nissim Ezekiel’s Latter-Day Psalms: His Religious and Philosophical Speculations By Dr. Pallavi Srivastava
      • The Moping Owl : the Epitome of Melancholy by Zinia Mitra
      • Gary Soto’s Vision of Chicano Experiences: The Elements of San Joaquin and Human Nature by Paula Hayes
      • Sri Aurobindo: A Poet By Aju Mukhopadhyay
      • Wordsworthian Romanticism in the Poetry of Jayanta Mahapatra: Nature and the Reflective Capabilities of a Poetic Self by Paula Hayes
      • Reflective Journey of T.S. Eliot: From Philosophy to Poetry by Syed Ahmad Raza Abidi
      • North East Indian Poetry: ‘Peace’ in Violence by Ananya .S. Guha
    • 2014-2015 >
      • From The Hidden World of Poetry: Unravelling Celtic mythology in Contemporary Irish Poetry Adam Wyeth
      • Alchemy’s Drama: Conflict, Resolution and Poiesis in the Poetic Work of Art by Michelle Bitting
      • Amir Khushrau: The Musical Soul of India by Dr. Shamenaz
      • PUT YOUR HANDS ON ME: POETRY'S EROTIC ART by Elena Karina Byrne
      • Celtic and Urban Landscapes in Irish Poetry by Linda Ibbotson
      • Trickster at the African Crossroads and the Bridge to the Blues in America by Michelle Bitting
    • 2015-2016 >
      • Orogeny/Erogeny: The “nonsense” of language and the poetics of Ed Dorn T Thilleman
      • Erika Burkart: Fragments, Shards, and Visions by Marc Vincenz
      • English Women Poets and Indian politics
    • 2016-2017 >
      • Children’s Poetry in India- A Case Study of Adil Jussawalla and Ananya Guha by Shruti Sareen
      • Thirteen Thoughts on Poetry in the Digital Age by Mandy kAHN
    • 2017-2018 >
      • From Self-Portrait with Dogwood: A Route of Evanescence by Christopher Merrill
      • Impure Poetry by Tony Barnstone
      • On the Poets: Contributors in Context by Donald Gardner
      • Punching above its Weight: Dutch Poetry in English, a Selection, 2013-2017 by Jane Draycott
  • Print Editions

To Translate the War by Aneta Kamińska
​

 When this broke out, and it was not February 24, 2022, but March 1, 2014, I was going through a massive creative crisis. It seemed to me that literature is helpless in such a situation—how can reading some poetry in Warsaw help when there were people being killed on the Maidan in Kyiv, when Crimea was being illegally occupied and the Russian army was invading Donbas? Back then, I could neither write nor translate poetry — I just didn’t see what the point was of doing it. Finally, I was able to overcome this crisis because of the repeated signals: that someone is reading my translations; that the anthology "The Orange Parts" is circulating and fulfilling its function; that it is helping Poles understand Ukraine better by demonstrating the diversity of Ukrainian poetry; and that in the same year, I published an anthology "East-West," dedicated to the Maidan Revolution and the beginning of the war in Donbass.

When on February 24, 2022, the war broke out for the second time, with more force and destruction, the most shocking realisation for me was that I was well-prepared as a translator because all these poems, which I have been translating since 2014, are painfully relevant now. On the first day, after many hours of classes and conversations with my students, I put together in one file all the thematic texts and sent them to a few editors and radio producers. I am not sure if I came up with this idea myself, but the next morning my phone never stopped ringing; I kept receiving notifications non-stop on Facebook and Messenger; everyone wanted the same thing: the translations. During the first couple of weeks, I was working like a machine, automatically, not completely aware of what was going on. I was translating new poems, which began to appear on social media and which I was sending to everyone willing to read them, sing them, record and re-live them – at home, in schools, at concerts, and at demonstrations supporting Ukraine. I didn't even have a minute to consider whether it made sense, let alone experience any crisis. If ten-twenty people reached out to me for the translations daily, it must have been the best proof that my work made sense. On a daily basis, I witnessed that the poems live, circulate, and work in favour of Ukraine—by helping to cope with emotions, rendering information, and raising money. Someone from the university told me that they were going to use them in the discussion with their students. Someone else was organising a charity event, and the others were preparing a poetry evening, a children’s theatre at school, and reading and recording at home. I guess the most touching part was that they asked for the original versions as well, because "at school, there are also Ukrainian kids," or because "there are women who just arrived from Ukraine," or "the Ukrainian poets are there." For all these events in the most different corners of Poland, they made sure to invite the new guests, to help them feel at home, to involve them in the activities of local communities, and to make them read something in their mother tongue. Or maybe the most touching was the fact that so many people started suddenly to learn Ukrainian, at least some words of a greeting.

Everything is touching, so every smallest moment I have, I dedicate to making translations and searching for those originals from a few years ago – and this is my form of fighting, of supporting Ukraine, being with my friends and acquaintances, with all the poetesses and poets, for whom I translate and for whom I am trembling now. Because I can see that it is also important for them. Thanks to social media, my friends in Ukraine know we are with them. We are supporting them and heartily welcoming them as our guests. Sometimes I receive thank you notes from Ukraine for the "sacrificial work". But I don’t have a feeling that this work is sacrificial (though of course I barely sleep and eat because I am translating all the time), especially in comparison to what they are doing. I wish I could end that war; stop the missiles, mortars, and shotguns; rewind the death and distraction; I respond; but since it is not in my power to do it, I am doing what I can do, at least this. In some senses, it is also my answer to the discussion regarding "the great Russian culture": I don’t have time for this, because I am translating the great Ukrainian literature, which is being created just in front of our eyes, in the trenches, bomb shelters, basements, evacuation trains, and during the forced emigration. There is no greater poetry than that at the moment.
​
Actually, I could be translating any poem because each text adds up to the popularisation of Ukrainian literature. However, I, a pacifist, have consequently been translating fresh poems on war. This seems the most important to me since all of us feel that we lack words to describe what we are witnessing and what we are experiencing. The poetesses and the poets also feel the same, but at least some of them manage to find the words and share them. I believe it is a priority right now—to find the words and images to help cope with the emotions, to organise in one’s head the current events (as if it were possible), to find a new balance and strength—and this is the only way to help.
Personally, I also manage my own emotions by writing; poems come pouring out of me, although only on weekends when I finally have a moment to reflect on it all and spend some time with myself. These poems are unexpectedly much simpler than those I have been writing before, much less poetic, but obviously, this is my response to the critical situation. Some of them are dramatic, much more dramatic than the ones from Ukraine, and maybe not everyone will be eager to read them. The task I set for myself was to observe, note, and be vigilant. May all inhuman atrocities be detailed and remembered so that we never forget, justify, or relativize them. Many of the poems are my notes from conversations with people I know and with colleagues from work because the topic of war never leaves our lips. They are also poetically digested posts from Facebook. A kind of eavesdrop, read-over-the-shoulder, nearly encountered by accident, poems. 
I don’t have any more doubts that writing and translating are important tasks. One might say it is an informational fight against the war, the other might say it is a kind of therapy – and both of them would be right. For me, it is first and foremost a way to be with Ukraine, to be Ukraine, and – at least partially – to translate, postpone, and push the war away.
 
Translated from Polish by Iryna Vikyrchak
Picture
​ 
Aneta Kamińska is a Polish poet and a translator of Ukrainian poetry into Polish. She has published seven volumes of her own poetry, of which the most recent one is teraz zaraz (2022). She has also published translations of several Ukrainian poets, including Nazar Honchar, Halyna Tkachuk, Lyubov Yakymchuk, Julia Stakhivska, Vasyl Holoborodko, Emma Andiyevska, Kateryna Kalytko, as well as three anthologies of Ukrainian poetry in Polish.
Born on May 27 1976 in Szczebrzeszyn in Poland, spent her youth years in Zamość, currently lives in Warsaw. She graduated from the Department of Polish Studies of the Warsaw University. works as a methodology supervisor and teacher of the Polish language for foreigners. She is a member of the Literary Translators Association.


Archives

Interviews
Issue XXIX July 2019
Issue XXX February 2020
​Issue XXXI December 2020
Research Series on Sylvia Plath
Research Series on Tagore

The Magazine

Editorial Board
Collaboration with Stremež
Media Focus
Copyright Notice
Blog

Support

Poets

Contact
Poetry Submissions
Media
Terms of Use
Poems by Thomas Lux

Poems by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld

Poems by John Montague


Vertical Divider
Connect with us
© COPYRIGHT 2008-22. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Picture

​VerseVille (formerly The Enchanting Verses Literary Review) © 2008-2022    ISSN 0974-3057 Published from India. 

    Subscribe to our latest updates

    Get latest updates and issues mailed at your inbox
Submit


Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Contact
    • Media Coverages
    • Copyright Notice
    • VerseVille Blog
  • Submissions
    • Poetry and Essays Guidelines
    • Book Review Guidelines
    • Research Series Guidelines
  • Masthead
  • Editions
    • 2011 Issues >
      • ISSUE-XIV November 2011
    • 2012 Issues >
      • ISSUE-XV March 2012
      • ISSUE-XVI July 2012
      • ISSUE-XVII November 2012
    • 2013 Issues >
      • ISSUE-XVIII April 2013
      • ISSUE XIX November 2013
    • 2014 Issues >
      • ISSUE XX May 2014
    • 2015 Issues >
      • ISSUE XXI February 2015
      • Contemporary Indian English Poetry ISSUE XXII November 2015
    • 2016 Issues >
      • ISSUE XXIII August 2016
      • Poetry From Ireland ISSUE XXIV December 2016
    • 2017 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXV August 2017
      • ISSUE XXVI December 2017
    • 2018 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXVII July 2018
      • ISSUE XXVIII November 2018
    • 2019 Issues >
      • ISSUE XXIX July 2019
    • 2020 ISSUES >
      • Issue XXX February 2020
      • ISSUE XXXI December 2020
    • 2021 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXXII August 2021
    • 2022 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXXIII June 2022
      • ISSUE XXXIV December 2022
  • Collaborations
    • Macedonian Collaboration
    • Collaboration with Dutch Foundation for Literature
  • Interviews
  • Prose on Poetry and Poets
    • 2010-2013 >
      • Sylvia Plath by Dr. Nidhi Mehta >
        • Chapter-1(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-2(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-3(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-4(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-5(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-6(Sylvia Plath)
      • Prose Poems of Tagore by Dr. Bina Biswas >
        • Chapter-1(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-2(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-3(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-4(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-5(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-6(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-7(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-8(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-9(Rabindranath Tagore)
      • Kazi Nazrul Islam by Dr. Shamenaz Shaikh >
        • Chapter 1(Nazrul Islam)
        • Chapter 2(Nazrul Islam)
        • Chapter 3(Nazrul Islam)
      • Kabir's Poetry by Dr. Anshu Pandey >
        • Chapter 1(Kabir's Poetry)
        • Chapter 2(Kabir's Poetry)
        • Chapter 3(Kabir's Poetry)
      • My mind's not right by Dr. Vicky Gilpin >
        • Chapter- 1 Dr. Vicky Gilpin
        • Chapter-2 Dr. Vicky Gilpin
        • Chapter-3 Dr. Vicky Gilpin
        • Chapter-4 Dr. Vicky Gilpin
      • On Poetry & Poets by Abhay K.
      • Poetry of Kamla Das –A True Voice Of Bourgeoisie Women In India by Dr.Shikha Saxena
      • Identity Issues in the Poetry of Nissim Ezekiel by Dr.Arvind Nawale & Prashant Mothe*
      • Nissim Ezekiel’s Latter-Day Psalms: His Religious and Philosophical Speculations By Dr. Pallavi Srivastava
      • The Moping Owl : the Epitome of Melancholy by Zinia Mitra
      • Gary Soto’s Vision of Chicano Experiences: The Elements of San Joaquin and Human Nature by Paula Hayes
      • Sri Aurobindo: A Poet By Aju Mukhopadhyay
      • Wordsworthian Romanticism in the Poetry of Jayanta Mahapatra: Nature and the Reflective Capabilities of a Poetic Self by Paula Hayes
      • Reflective Journey of T.S. Eliot: From Philosophy to Poetry by Syed Ahmad Raza Abidi
      • North East Indian Poetry: ‘Peace’ in Violence by Ananya .S. Guha
    • 2014-2015 >
      • From The Hidden World of Poetry: Unravelling Celtic mythology in Contemporary Irish Poetry Adam Wyeth
      • Alchemy’s Drama: Conflict, Resolution and Poiesis in the Poetic Work of Art by Michelle Bitting
      • Amir Khushrau: The Musical Soul of India by Dr. Shamenaz
      • PUT YOUR HANDS ON ME: POETRY'S EROTIC ART by Elena Karina Byrne
      • Celtic and Urban Landscapes in Irish Poetry by Linda Ibbotson
      • Trickster at the African Crossroads and the Bridge to the Blues in America by Michelle Bitting
    • 2015-2016 >
      • Orogeny/Erogeny: The “nonsense” of language and the poetics of Ed Dorn T Thilleman
      • Erika Burkart: Fragments, Shards, and Visions by Marc Vincenz
      • English Women Poets and Indian politics
    • 2016-2017 >
      • Children’s Poetry in India- A Case Study of Adil Jussawalla and Ananya Guha by Shruti Sareen
      • Thirteen Thoughts on Poetry in the Digital Age by Mandy kAHN
    • 2017-2018 >
      • From Self-Portrait with Dogwood: A Route of Evanescence by Christopher Merrill
      • Impure Poetry by Tony Barnstone
      • On the Poets: Contributors in Context by Donald Gardner
      • Punching above its Weight: Dutch Poetry in English, a Selection, 2013-2017 by Jane Draycott
  • Print Editions