Note from the translator Yana Kane: “Week after week, month after month, year after year I hear about Russia’s relentless attacks on Ukraine. Kharkiv is the city that has been subjected to especially vicious bombings. Yet each time the citizens of Ukraine, the citizens of Kharkiv respond with resilience and courage; each time they push back the darkness with their love of life. One of the ways I express my solidarity with them is by translating contemporary poetry written by Ukrainian authors. Dmitry Blizniuk is a Kharkiv poet who chronicles his city’s suffering and the indomitable spirit. Note that ‘we are being freed of freedom and our lives’ is a reference to Putin’s claim that he started the war in order to defend the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine against the discrimination by the Ukrainian government.”
On average, poems in Rattle are published six months to a year after they were submitted. Then they appear online several months after that. Real poetry is timeless, of course, so usually it doesn’t matter—but this is the age of information. News cycles rarely last more than a week, let alone a year. One reason poetry lags behind other forms of contemporary media might be this delay—how can poetry be part of the conversation when it enters so late? Moreover, poets do often respond to current events in real-time, so why make them wait for our print schedule?
Our solution is Poets Respond—a poem written within the last week about a public event that occurred within the last week will appear every Sunday. Our only criterion for selection is the quality of the poem; all opinions and reactions are welcome. Selected poets will receive $100. To have your own poem considered for next week’s posting, submit at the link below before midnight Friday PST. Any poems sent before the midnights of Sunday and Tuesday will also be considered for bonus postings mid-week.
Every Sunday our livestreamed Rattlecast episodes feature the week’s Poets Respond poet at 8pm ET / 5pm PT.