Yuri Izdryk
trans. by Roman Ivashkiv and Erín Moure
Біттер-Sweet
the poles of my world—caramel and wormwood
between them—deserted magnetic fields
no causes no consquence exist here
even the boundaries are delineated broadly
this is a homeland without space or time
where the only method is—pray and breathe
where one plus one—is one and not two
where tablets and law are invisible and quiet
caravels float in embittered haze
dissolve in the murk like caramel candy
and no land can be seen for there is no land
just a handful of sand and ash just a handful
this world of mine’s infinite infinitely small
who knows where it gets its capacity and volume
at one pole caramel at the other wormwood
its aftertaste that of forgotten good news
Yuri Izdryk is a poet, novelist, musician, and visual and performance artist from Ukraine. A selected poems, Smokes, translated by Roman Ivashkiv and Erín Moure, will appear from Lost Horse Press in 2019.
photo by Erín Moure
Roman Ivashkiv is a translator of Russian and Ukrainian into English and vice-versa. He lectures in Slavic Languages and Literatures, and in Translation Studies, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he is Director of the Ukrainian Studies Program.
Erín Moure is a poet and translator of poetry. Recent works include a translation of Wilson Bueno’s Paraguayan Sea (finalist for Best Translated Book Award). 2019 will see her translation of Galician Lupe Gómez’s Camouflage (Circumference), a co-translation with Roman Ivashkiv of Ukrainian Yuri Izdryk’s Smokes (Lost Horse), and her own The Elements (Anasasi). Find her online at erinmoure.strikingly.com