Peppered Mead & Gnostic Democracy: Gifts of the Spirit, from Ukraine
With pleasure, and no small amount of astonishment, I announce today that for my ‘poetry and essays about Ukraine’ – the latter published here on the blog – I have earned a place on the list of recipients of the 2014 Hryhorii (Gregory) Skovoroda Award (honestly, in section 7, there I am: Наомі Фойл). Hryhorii Skovoroda was a 18th century…
Two Watermelons: Inner Reflections & a Letter from Ukraine
1. Rebelling against the old Arab adage, the Palestinian novelist Emile Habiby ‘believed that it was possible, and even useful, to “carry two watermelons under one arm” – that is, to take up both literature and politics’. The risk, of course, being that you will drop and smash both. Everyone who knows me knows I care about Palestine. And Ukraine.…
A Green Letter from Ukraine
I have been wondering about Green politics in Ukraine: as all over the world, it seems that the more energy self-sufficient a country is, the better it will be able to resist dependency on any foreign power. My correspondent in Lviv, political analyst Lyuddmyla Pavlyuk, answered my questions, and with her permission I share her letter here. Green Voices in…
Voices from Ukraine
I promised another post on Ukraine, and after the warm welcome I was given in Oxford, there may well be more. My on-going correspondence with translator Steve Komarnyckyj (right, in photo) has evolved into conversations with his partner S.J. Speight, with whom he runs Kalyna Language Press; and, in Ukraine, poet Ihor Pavlyuk…
English PEN Ukrainian Poetry Evening
Given the current crisis in Ukraine, and my own lack of expertise in the country’s history and politics, it is humbling indeed to be included in English PEN’s Ukrainian Poetry Evening in Oxford this Thursday, featuring poet Ihor Pavlyuk and translator Steve Komarnyckyj reading from A Flight over the Black Sea, published this month by…