Translators’ Note
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At twenty-four, Artur Dron is already a celebrated Ukrainian poet from the Ivano-Frankivsk region. A journalism major and former event organizer for the Old Lion Publishing House, he joined the Armed Forces of Ukraine soon after Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022 and has since been defending Ukraine at the front.
Dron’s debut poetry collection, Dormitory No. 6, came out in 2020 and has been translated into Lithuanian, English, Polish, and Italian. In 2023, his second poetry collection, We Were Here, was published. These striking, powerful, and crisp poems are based on his experience on the front lines. However, in the poet’s own words, they “were written at the front, but they are not about the war. They are about people who love more than they fear.”
If anyone deserves to be translated, it is Dron. By bringing his words into English, we hope to reveal the conversation Dron has entered with poets across languages who have turned their poetry into a medium to document and understand their war experiences, often juxtaposing grim wartime reality with scenes of nature or small, everyday moments that suddenly gain new significance.
Striking in their lucidity, the lines from Dron’s poem “…in days gone by”:
But this winter is so harsh,
and the price demanded of us is such
that only snow
and soldiers fall.
Soldiers fall—children grow.
echo with poetic lines by American poet Richard Wilbur, who served in the US Army between 1943 and 1945 in Europe and observed the snow falling on the dead in “First Snow in Alsace”: “You think: beyond the town a mile / Or two, this snowfall fills the eyes / Of soldiers dead a little while.”
In “Prayer,” Dron challenges the wartime reader to take the church teaching:
Sail with seafarers,
travel with wanderers,
they say in church
one—or maybe ten—steps further as he calls on them:
Freeze to blackness with the frostbitten
puke your guts out with the shell-shocked
and then:
Be with the one
who eats cup noodles with cold water,
and with another who’s been captured
but refuses to talk.
This urgent invitation joins the previous call to which another American veteran poet, Gerardo Mena, responded in his award-winning poem “So I Was a Coffin”: “They said you are a bandage. So I was a bandage. / I jumped on Kyle’s chest and wrapped my lace arms together around his torso and pressed my head to his ribcage and listened to his heartbeat.”
Many of Dron’s poems are infused with religious motifs and language, as faith keeps him and his brothers and sisters in arms going in the time of war. When asked in a recent interview about what drives him to incorporate biblical images and symbols into his writing, Dron said:
For me, biblical motifs aren’t just a system of imagery or a set of recognizable, familiar symbols. My worldview is rooted in my Christian beliefs. It’s the foundation of how I see the world. So naturally, everything related to my relationship with God—whether it’s expressing my thoughts, questions, frustrations, or even moments of intense emotion, crying or screaming, directed towards Him—is profoundly personal and deeply ingrained. [… ]I do include biblical motifs frequently, but it’s not because I assume readers will necessarily recognize them, but because it’s how I authentically express myself. They become a vehicle for articulating the most genuine sentiments within my writing.
And there’s indeed a profound intimacy in the poet’s dialogues with God.
When you grow up and learn to talk
please ask your mother
to tell mine
how to survive it all—
…he asks Baby Jesus in a poem that subtly addresses Ukraine’s switch of Christmas celebration from January 7 to December 25 against Bethlehem “bleeding from shells and bullets.”
Written in the trenches, Dron’s poetry serves as a testament to the experiences of people who lived their lives yesterday and today are thrust into yet another violent chapter of Russia’s centuries-long genocidal war against Ukraine. But it’s also a testament to humanity and love that “could give up and abandon it all / but it perseveres.”
–Yevheniia Dubrova (Hanover, NH) and Hanna Leliv (Lviv, Ukraine/Princeton, NJ)
*
Prayer
Sail with seafarers,
travel with wanderers,
as they say in church.
With the one who was raped
and who bears a child under her heart,
breathe in, breathe out, breathe in.
With the one whose hair has turned white,
get the backpack ready for school.
Freeze to blackness with the frostbitten,
puke your guts out with the shell-shocked.
With the tank commander
missing since October,
be found, be reassembled
from his scattered body parts.
Particles,
as they say in church.
Be also
with the one who eats cup noodles with cold water,
with the one who’s been captured
but refuses to talk,
with the one who was conceived
but never born,
and with her
who didn’t get a chance to deliver him.
Be also
with those two girls in the Rivne oblast
whom our convoy passed on the way to the east.
Remember?
They watched us from the side of the road
and placed their hands over their hearts.
And then I understood everything.
–Translated, from the Ukrainian, by Yevheniia Dubrova
Молитва
З плаваючими плавай,
з подорожуючими подорожуй,
як говорять у церквах.
З тією, яку зґвалтували,
і яка носить дитину,
дихай, дихай, дихай.
Із тим, який посивів,
збирай рюкзак до школи.
З обмороженими обморожуйся,
із контуженими блюй в окопі.
Із командиром танку,
якого шукають ще з жовтня,
знайдися, складися
з розкиданих частин.
Частичок,
як говорять у церквах.
А ще
з тим, який їсть мівіну на холодній воді;
з тим, який в полоні, і ніколи не розкаже;
з тим, якого встигли зачати,
але не встигли народити.
І з тією,
яка не встигла.
А ще
з тими двома дівчатками
десь у Рівненській області, пам’ятаєш?
Ми тільки їхали колоною на Схід,
а вони дивилися біля дороги
і поклали руки на серця.
І я тоді все зрозумів.
_______________________________________________
In days gone by
that came at no cost
Holy John Paul II
said in Lviv,
“Rain falls—children grow.”
Your Holiness John Paul,
I grew up under that rain.
But this winter is so harsh,
and the price demanded of us is such
that only snow
and soldiers fall.
Soldiers fall—children grow.
Soldiers fall—children grow.
–Translated, from the Ukrainian, by Yevheniia Dubrova
Святий Ян Павел Другий
у старі безкоштовні часи
сказав у Львові:
«Дощ падає – діти ростуть».
Святий Іване Павле,
я виріс під цим дощем.
Але зараз така зима,
і все вимагає такої ціни,
що падають
тільки сніг і солдати.
Солдати падають — діти ростуть.
Солдати падають — діти ростуть.
_______________________________________________
Once again we couldn’t agree
on a date to celebrate your birth.
You see, this year on both days—
the 25th and the 7th—
Bethlehem bled from shells and bullets.
The manger is gone.
There are no more lambs,
no maternity hospital,
no preschool,
not even a playground.
When you grow up and learn to talk
please ask your mother
to tell mine
how to survive it all.
–Translated, from the Ukrainian, by Yevheniia Dubrova
Ми знову сперечались,
коли тебе зустрічати.
Але, знаєш,
і 25-го і 7-го Вифлеєм
обстрілювали і бомбили.
Нема ясел, нема ягнят, нема
перинатального центру, нема
дитячого садочка, нема
дитячого майданчика.
Коли ти підростеш і вже говоритимеш,
скажи своїй мамі хай скаже моїй,
як їй це все
пережити.
_______________________________________________
The Izium Eucharist
“… For this is my body which will be given up for you for the forgiveness of sins.”
from the Divine Liturgy
These are our bodies
which are given up for us.
But no sins shall be forgiven.
These are our bodies
that give up so easily
when being pulled from the ground.
These are our woods, and here are our crosses.
And these are the bodies
which are given up for us alone.
Now you see clearly:
we are just like your son.
But no sins shall be forgiven.
Look:
the same bones emerge;
the same blood and water.
But no sins shall be forgiven.
Listen:
the same scream; the same silence.
That’s how
the Izyum Eucharist looks.
These are our woods, and our crosses here.
The living dig up the dead, saying:
these are our bodies—our own bodies.
We look so much like your son.
These are our bodies, look. Our own bodies.
We’ve looked like your son for a while.
So many bodies, look, so many.
We’re your younger son,
who isn’t about to forgive
any of this.
–Translated, from the Ukrainian, by Hanna Leliv
Ізюмське причастя
«…це є Тіло Моє, що за вас ламається на відпущення гріхів»
З тексту Божественної літургії
Це є тіла наші,
що за нас ламаються.
Але жодного відпущення гріхів.
Це є тіла наші,
що, буває, так легко ламаються,
коли їх витягують з-під землі.
Тут наші ліси, а тут – наші хрести.
А це є тіла,
що тільки за нас ламаються.
Тепер добре бачиш:
ми як твій син.
Тільки жодного відпущення гріхів.
Дивись:
ті ж кістки виходять назовні,
та ж кров і вода.
Але жодного відпущення гріхів.
Слухай:
той самий крик, те саме мовчання.
Так виглядає
Ізюмське причастя.
Тут наші ліси, а тут – наші хрести,
а живі викопують мертвих і говорять:
це наші тіла, це ж наші тіла.
Ми такі схожі на твого сина.
Це наші тіла, подивися, це ж наші тіла.
Ми вже давно як твій син.
Стільки тіл, подивись, стільки тіл.
Ми – твій молодший син,
який нікому цього
не відпустить.
_______________________________________________
When we take off our bulletproof vests,
helmets, jackets, liners, and gloves,
and eat tangerines by a makeshift stove,
and turn child-like,
I sometimes think
you’re in the next room.
In a village,
a local woman said to her child,
“Come, my little son.”
But we all
turned.
–Translated, from the Ukrainian, by Hanna Leliv
Коли ми скидаємо бронежилети,
шоломи, бушлати, куртки, рукавиці,
і їмо мандарини біля буржуйки
і робимось схожими на дітей,
я інколи думаю,
що ти десь у сусідній кімнаті.
В селі
якась жінка з місцевих
сказала дитині: «Синочку».
Але кожен із нас
озирнувся.
