I’m allowed
                            to sleep
                            here.
I got cold lying in the storage yard.
I was tortured in party offices
by soulless apologists.
Together with soldier, sailor
and partisan ––
                       A l l  m y  p e o p l e
sleep here forever under a layer of grass,
h e r e  w a s  a  c o m p l e t e  g e n o c i d e!
Come, lovers, with flowers,
leave a tear, take a low bow ––
with hearts warmed by sincerity.
Just no more war.
Just no more war.

[1997]

John Hennessy is the author of two poetry collections, Bridge and Tunnel and Coney Island Pilgrims. He is the co-translator, with Ostap Kin, of A New Orthography, selected poems by Serhiy Zhadan, finalist for the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation, 2021, and co-winner of the Derek Walcott Prize, 2021. The poems published here are included in the forthcoming anthology Babyn Yar: Ukrainian Poets Respond (Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute), edited and co-translated by Ostap Kin.

Ostap Kin is an editor (and translator with John Hennessy) of Babyn Yar: Ukrainian Poets Respond (forthcoming from Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute) and New York Elegies: Ukrainian Poets Respond, and is the co-translator, with John Hennessy, of A New Orthography, selected poems by Serhiy Zhadan, co-winner of the Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry and finalist for the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation. With Vitaly Chernetsky, he translated Yuri Andrukhovych's Songs for a Dead Rooster.

Read Ostap Kin’s introduction to these translations.

 

Мені дозволено
                              Тут
                              Спати.
Я на задвірках змерз лежати.
Мене замучили по кабінетах
бездушні партапологети.
Разом із солдатом, і матросом,
і партизаном ––
                        В е с ь   м і й   р і д
тут спить навічно під покосом, ––
т у т   б у в   т о т а л ь н и й   г е н о ц и д ! ! !
Прийдіть, закохані, із квітами,
лишіть сльозу, низькій уклін ––
з серцями, щирістю зігрітими.
Аби –– без війн.
Аби –– без війн.

[1997]