大象传媒

A week of Essays from Ukrainian poets who have responded to war in their country since 2014. Many of Ukraine鈥檚 poets had to grapple with language (Russian or Ukrainian) and make sense of the hybrid war since 2014 that brought bloody division as Russian backed separatists and the Ukrainian military fought over the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of East Ukraine.

Poet Oksana Maksymchuk co-edited Words for War, a collection of new poems from Ukraine. Now she, like many of the poets in the collection, has been forced to flee. From a studio in Budapest she introduces writers such as Serhiy Zhadan - now active in relief efforts in Kharkiv, Halyna Kruk - who has remained in Lviv and soldier poet Borys Humenyuk who wrote -

'Poetry saw people die. Poetry put spent bullet shells in its ears. Poetry would rather go blind than see corpses every day. Poetry went places where there isn't a place for poetry. Poetry witnessed it all. Poetry witnessed it all.'

Hear their words. You may be changed by them.

Readers Michael Begby, Rebecca Crankshaw, Tayla Kovacevic-Ebong & Neil McCaul

Producer Mark Burman

For more information on those poets featured in The Essay and others go to
https://www.wordsforwar.com/