Philip Nikolayev is a poet living in Boston. He translates poetry from several languages and is currently translating poetry from Ukraine. Nikolayev’s works are published internationally, including such periodicals as Poetry, The Paris Review, Harvard Review, and Grand Street. His several collections of verse include Monkey Time (Wave Books; winner of the 2001 Verse Prize) and Letters from Aldenderry (Salt). He is coeditor-in-chief of Fulcrum: An Anthology of Poetry and Aesthetics.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/philip-nikolayev
Arkady Shtypel, translated from the Ukrainian by Philip Nikolayev
Arkadiy Shtypel is a Russian Ukrainian bilingual poet, translator, and author of several works on poetry. He was born in 1944 in the Uzbek city of Kattakurgan during the WWII evacuation. His childhood and youth were spent in Dnipro, Ukraine, where he studied physics. He was expelled from his university for attempting to create a samizdat literary journal, and was at the same time accused of both Zionism and Ukrainian nationalism. After military service, he completed his university studies via correspondence but never pursued a career in physics. In 1969, he moved to Moscow and published several volumes of poetry. His first collection, Visiting Euclid, saw the light of day in 2002. In 2016, a book of Shtypel’s translations of classic Russian poetry into Ukrainian was published in Kyiv by the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy Publishing House. He has been a regular participant in the Kyiv Laurels literary festival and in the poetic programs of the Lviv Publishers’ Forum. He has been residing in Odessa, Ukraine, since 2021.
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the marvelous form
of living beings
breath
blood circulation
digestion and excretion
active muscles
all those glands
enzyme chemistry
hormones
networks of nerves
with countless sensory endings
the miracle of sight
the brain!
especially our human brain
understanding
imagination
speech
all our words
that we use daily
polished by millions of dead lips
like the sea pebbles
that Demosthenes held in his mouth
to overcome speech impediments
…an explosion resounds
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can’t think of verses
how many of us
have gone to the skies
can’t think of verses
while clenching teeth
don’t think of verses
god forbid worse
so won’t think of verses
can’t think of verses
in blood of squished cherries
the war the war rages
……………………
life-giving wheat
wrapped in blue light
far in the valley
a song rings daily
“ah there will be floods again
and laughs
and wine”
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war’s fiery hands
a catchy metaphor
but inappropriate
as it aestheticizes
and adorns war
i.e. endless terror
dirt
stench
gutted mutilated bodies
entrails spilling out
so there’s no need for metaphors
except perhaps this:
war’s most fiery hands
will close
around the enemy’s throat
Maria Galina, translated from the Russian by Philip Nikolayev
Maria Galina is a Russian Ukrainian writer known for weaving mythological and imaginative elements into her works, which have won multiple literary prizes. She is also a skilled translator of poetry and prose, a distinguished literary reviewer, and a researcher of socio-cultural topics. She was born in Tver and raised in Ukraine, first in Kyiv and then in Odessa, where she attended university. As a graduate student, she studied hydrology and ichthyology. Her literary works include multiple novels, seven poetry collections, and accolades as a translator and promoter of modern Ukrainian poetry. After 2014, she returned to Ukraine, and she now lives in Odessa with her husband, the poet Arkady Shtypel. She crafts camouflage nets as her poetry and prose resonate in translation globally across various languages.
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A drone hovering in the lower cloud layer
probes with the lenses of its mechanical eyes
the pine forest,
its red trunks
aimed at the zenith,
its anthills and mole burrows,
its supernovae and black holes.
It sees what is seen by someone leaning over a monitor,
a willow coppice over a quiet river,
emerald kingfishers diving into the greenish water,
golden-throated bee-eaters,
arrowhead sprouts and cattails,
a haven for green dragonflies.
It also sees what lies beyond the operator’s
limited field of vision:
pale shadows wavering like smoke over water,
mermaids dancing,
a goat-legged faun playing a fife,
the rusting carcass
of an unidentified aircraft
at the bottom of a placid lake
(a slender three-fingered hand clinging to the control lever),
a pale flame dangling from a power line support,
the ghost of a cat washing itself amidst the ruins of a house,
in a word, everything that’s forbidden for humans to see
and of which it
will never speak,
stuff that we cannot find out
and none of us will ever find out,
because it
holds no tactical or strategic significance.
The river that lulls to sleep mermaids and the dead
eventually becomes
just one of the rivers.
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Initially she muttered ah and then she just said wow:
Truly, a roof that sails the sea can take your breath away,
When the waves pummel the damp walls wave after wave after wave
And when the cold moon rears its head into the empty window.
A sailor with a green green beard gave me a ring to keep,
A band of sea dogs sang to us down in the murky deep,
A sea cat licks my hand at will and shows off purring skills,
Though it’s grown flatter than a board and has developed gills.
I comb with a scallop shell comb my glowing azure hair.
All you pedestrians of the seas won’t shed another tear.
The moon floats, the wave rushes forth, as dark and cold as death.
You will not recognize my face when I rise from the depths.
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When she barely sways with the gentle waves
She speaks to herself, unable to hear herself
Feeling the salty tangled knot of words
as a snake feels out with its forked
tongue a saucer of milk. Why oh why do I not
have a tail, had I but a tail, I’d stand proud and tall
I’d make sure your bridges fell, tickle all your checkpoints to hell
I’d have swarms of tame worms nibble at your li-
Ver constantly, indefatigably
I wouldn’t be floating face down with other corpses lifelessly
Take away my grief and give me a tail, oh good witch of the sea
And so she sinks to the deepest depths defiantly in her death
Having hit the bottom, she’ll flourish among the silt
Where her cat too will always have its saucer of fresh milk
And her magic orchards will sprout under the waters
And her roses will reach the size of two fists each
And her iron serpents will strike clean, without a glitch
While she is alive, the city remains in place,
The market opens its stalls every morning,
The cosmetics store on the corner displays its enticements,
The lilacs bloom and fade behind the green fence,
The scent of bread fills the air, and plump Aunt Nadya
Leads her grandson to daycare along the same road.
Every morning, her eyes shut and without lifting her head from the pillow,
She emerges for her morning walk
As doors open and friends and family
Wave from the windows.
The lilacs bloom and fade behind the green fence.
Come home, they say to her, we’ve resurrected your city,
It’s become even better than before, the only thing is,
Where lilacs once bloomed, we now have honeysuckle and mock orange,
The market has been renovated with new modern pavilions,
A triumph of technology,
And the lyceum was reconstructed based on extant period photos.
But what about Aunt Nadya? Oh, Aunt Nadya bought
That very house on the corner when she came back
From the UK, can you imagine,
Her daughter married an oligarch there,
And what is more he’s an English lord, owns an ancestral castle,
I wonder what he saw in her, especially with a child.
Yes, yes, she says, and what about the little dog,
The one with funny multicolored ears,
That used to bark at me from behind the fence, standing on his hind legs…
Where is that dog?
They tell her, oh, come on,
Don’t be like a child, for real,
Listen, the dog
Would have died anyway, not of heart attack,
Nor from the shards
Of the shattered flower shop window,
Nor from being kicked by a short-statured occupier,
But simply of old age, and quite a while ago too, the dog,
I’m telling you, the dog would have died anyway, dogs
Are basically incapable of living that long.
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At the checkpoint during the inspection they took from her
An old family photograph
A power bank
Foundation cream, concealer, lip gloss, mascara
A 10 pack box of Marlboros
A signet ring
A beryl diadem
Regalia of authority and justice
They got into her panties and bra, supposedly searching for hidden currency there
What, what is this?
Accept it, Inanna, they said, the laws of the underworld are harsh
Or whatever your name is, Oksana, listen
During sacred rituals, keep silent like a mute
As to her correspondence on Viber
With her husband and daughter
She had proactively deleted it beforehand
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He says, it’s all just thunder, I bring good will
A fiery sword and a golden quill
And wear an ancient brand mark on my brow
Come out with open arms to greet me now
See how everything has shifted from its place
And turned ghastlier?
The stars were never quite so merciless
Last year
I chased Pokémons in the temple, chopped them with an axe like wood,
And was proclaimed the master demon blaster
Such in a nutshell was my battle of good against good
Last year
Last year we got vaccinated against madness and the plague
We strolled in bucolic gardens, in love with a movie star
But was it even us though? The answer is vague
Last year
I shone like a god, six-legged and four-armed
I lured virgins into the light with pretty sound
I expanded in summer and in spring I flowered
I was the champion in this whole ice dance affair
But what has this year done to me?
Yes, what has this year done to me?
And what will I do to you this year?
All poems translated from the Russian by Philip Nikolayev
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