Elina Petrova is a member of Houston Poets in the Loop. She is a frequent reader in the Words & Art program at Rice University, has been published in many North American publications, annual anthologies of both the Houston and Austin poetry festivals, and was a finalist for the post of 2015 Houston Poet Laureate.
MR: Let’s start with the title, Tonality. In music or visual arts this refers to the arrangement or relationship of tones, whether notes on a keyboard or maybe the color scheme of a canvas. Your poem seeks true tonality in life itself; wind shifting sun splashes/ on the red bird-house…the longed-for water from cupped hands…one martini with two straws…
These images, these life details, express desired
arrangements, relationships, and form a slight caveat to your conclusion, As long as tonality is true,/there is not
much lacking…which is a close mirror to your epigraph by Lao Tzu…When you realize there is nothing lacking…
Could you expound on these ideas with a close eye
toward the word true…as in true tonality?
EP:
In music, tonality sets the hierarchy of pitches, the certain minor or major
key of a piece. Although this term can be applied only indirectly to poetic
diction, the sensitive reader feels the tonality of the text: suppressed tears
or ecstatic whirl, ironic jazz or esthetic and scientific admiration – the
complex flow of the contradictory ideas and emotions that triggered the
poem. Classical music is one of the inexhaustible sources of my inspiration,
and sometimes I wove a “soundtrack” to the texture of a poem. It can be
Monteverdi’s madrigal, Bach’s partita, a jazz improvisation on Erik Satie’s
theme, a modern song, or the 2nd movement of Mozart’s piano concerto #23, as in
the poem “Tonality.”
In the epigraph to “Tonality,” the first poem of my “Timeline” diptych, I intentionally introduced only a half of Lao Tzu’s quote: “When you realize there is nothing lacking… [the whole world belongs to you”]. The diptych gradually unfolds the “lacking,” the inability to change situations in my war-torn homeland and even in my own family. Nothing is the narrator’s “own,” though. All that is left is how a person responds to these painful situations: the strength in vulnerability, the openness to light through brokenness, gratitude for simple, longed-for things – an unfeigned “tonality.”
War Filter
MR:
While your poetry expresses worlds of experience; simple, profound, and areas
in-between, it seems now almost impossible to discuss it without at least
touching on the impact that war has had on your life and your creative life. These moments come very direct, as in your
Timeline poem, Backyard Laptop, where
reflection on the intense beauty of a cardinal turns abruptly to news from your
homeland, which in turn becomes two more poems with vivid imagery of the war
and its victims.
Hoping to not be presumptuous and with the utmost
respect toward your experiences, is it safe to say that most of your poetry is,
on varying levels, filtered through these war experiences? Is there a before and after in your writing
life? Once again, your poems are far too expansive to be defined solely in this
manner but if you would like to touch on this topic please do so?
EP:
Although I have been constantly following the news and talking to people from
both sides of my split country, I have written very few poems on the war theme.
Words that express the deepest, pierced level of psyche are like seeds hidden
in the hard core of a fruit – it takes time to peel the skin and slice the pulp
of heart experiences before reaching the seeds. Sometimes words appear belated
and shy like dry seed pods, though. After the years of spiraling down the
cancer world with my terminally ill mother, I could write a volume of the
contemporary Inferno that is a Ukrainian hospice, but ended up with a few
veiled stanzas written several years later in a new, self-taught language. The
same is with war: I don’t dare to be eloquent about the day-to-day anguish of
my former countrymen, since I’m neither on the frontline, nor amidst my
neighbors whose homes are exposed to mortar shelling, while I draft my verses
on a peaceful patio in Houston.
Backyard Laptop, Texas
Honeysuckle and Thai spice
waft from behind the fence.
Gravel sparkles quartz-white
on my cat’s burial place.
A red cardinal brings me to tears
with the intensity of his beauty.
Perhaps, it’s not even about him
but a wish to caress the day
at low tide: calm, lukewarm
like Gulf foam at four p.m.
when my timeline bursts –
the blood pump with news
from East Ukraine, where
I left my father.
Yes, some of my poems are filtered through
war-related experiences, which I never mention to my Texas friends. I also tend
to an inner dialogue on this subject as I reread James Jones, Tim O’Brien, Phil
Klay, and other writers who had actual war experiences. Sometimes I feel ironic
about it:
“I sleepwalk into work weeks like
an old shrink
who snoozes through patients’
nonsense
only to awake to solidarity with
grief.” *
But generally this “filter” makes me live by what
Marcus Aurelius meditated on eighteen and a half centuries ago: arising in the
morning, I remember that it’s a privilege to be alive, to think, to enjoy, and
to love. And, given any time and continent, what is poetry if not a declaration
of love in a troubled world?
* - from “Curious Music,” a poem in my next book
MS
Desert Song : Complexity of Insights; Experience / Imagination
MR:
There are major poems that are so direct and straightforward in their
expression that every time you read them they cut a swath straight to your
inner self, maybe we say your heart, maybe for me Bluebird by Bukowski as an example, and other major poems that are
so subtle and complex each reading reveals a multitude of new meaning and
insight. I find much of your poetry in
the second category. Maybe a good
example is Desert Song, another
favorite of mine. With this poem in
mind, could you shed some insight into your creative process, your
inspiration…how much of your poetry comes from actual experience: from
imagination? —or each reinforcing the other?
EP:
I always wanted to have unobstructed focus and clear, minimalist choices of
imagery to convey a concise, yet powerful story. But many of my poems,
despite my initial intention, unfolded chaotically like a dream sequence or a
simple tune that turned fugal.
When I feel that some image-laden thought coming
from my current experience, reading or recollection, suddenly meets my wish to
harmonize the subconscious chaos, I draft a few spontaneous, uncompromising
lines that usually set a theme. Then I watch the theme unfold in its unexpected
odyssey. “Desert Song,” which started from humming a melody of the first
stanza, developed through a linear rather than multilayered narration. As
usual, the journey revealed more than I intended in the prologue.
Yes, I’m one of those extinct species who turn
their lives into poems. In some poems I reinforce my “confessions” with details
freely expropriated from the lives of others. But, paraphrasing John Ciardi,
the poem eventually lies its way back to the truth. In “Desert Song,” while
meditating on a theme as old as the world – how to arise from the ashes when
what we once called love has no future – I also thought about stories of women
in my homeland, where unfavorable demographics trapped many of them into
hopeless relationships. The poem was triggered by a once-meaningful person from
my distant past who tried to reach me in my “second life” in Texas. I thought
about Heraclitus’s river that we step into and out of as different beings, yet
never twice. I also remembered my other former neighbor, a beautiful doctor,
who wasted her 30s waiting for a “separated” man to marry her. As a result, I
blended her story with the days of my most heartbreaking year (after the
funeral of my mom, the abandonment of my career because of hospital epics, and
the breakup with my fiancé) when I decided to start over everything in my life.
To dust myself from depression, I traveled to North Africa. After “The
Sheltering Sky” or Iñárritu’s “Babel,” travel of this kind may sound clichéd,
but my camera zoom had a different, simple and life-affirming take. In the poem
I wanted to talk about what one may feel rereading the 51st Psalm.
Yes, I actually hiked to the top of Mount Sinai
from 2 a.m. to sunrise and had a talk with a Bedouin guide, quoted at the end
of the poem, but the climb in the poem was also metaphorical. “For I know my
transgressions and my sin is always before me… Create in me a pure heart, O
God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Let the bones you have crushed
rejoice.” I still have a vintage Kodak photo of this sunrise scene:
The first rays slit terracotta
boulders
from the summit, where we stood,
down to Saint Catherine’s gorge.
A pilgrim behind us sang in
Greek.
I wasn’t coming home - the world
was getting warmer without you.
My palms pulsated with the sun
unshared in its excess.
Writing in a New, Self-Taught Language
MR:
Earlier you mention “a new, self-taught language.” I am somewhat mystified by people who are
adroit in multiple languages; and then to write poetry of complexity and depth
in a new, self-taught language is even more impressive to me. Could you relay something of this
experience? Is your native language Ukrainian? Russian? When did you first begin learning
English? Is there any way to describe the thought processes that go into
writing poetry in a non-native language?
Was there a moment when you stopped translating and your mind took on
new patterns of thinking, culturally…conceptually?
EP:
I’ve heard from a few well-known American poets that they are not really
captivated by the poetry of Nobel Laureate, Joseph Brodsky. Some have said that
even Pushkin’s poetry is so lost in translation that they can only rely on
Russian experts who vouch for its excellence. What then is left for an unknown
poet transplanted to another tradition if even geniuses don’t resonate with the
astute foreign ear?
Not many were privileged to grow up learning a
couple of languages with a private governess like the aristocratic Nabokov who,
from age five, spoke English as freely as his mother tongue. To write in a
foreign language, a poet should communicate in it at least starting from his
college years. Besides, even an extremely accelerated process of unzipping “the
folder” of a foreign culture takes a desperately long time. Imagine a
middle-aged newcomer like me, who tries to process the terabytes of information
that native speakers have absorbed at a natural pace since childhood. How
much linguistic obsession and humility should a newcomer possess to embrace the
myths, rhythms and characters of a different nation, to start feeling the roots
in the new soil?
The remarkably intellectual poet, Brodsky,
identified himself not as a bilingual poet, but as a Russian poet and English
essayist. Writing readable, decent verse based on a story-line was insufficient
for him even in a foreign language. He strived yet couldn’t write with the same
prosodic harmony and enchantment of subtle intonations that he had in his
mother tongue. In their native language poets blend their heartfelt thoughts,
imagery, rhythms, acoustic alliterations and humorous play with cultural
archetypes at once – intuitively and spontaneously, without breaking their
momentum by resorting to research and dictionaries. Brodsky said that writing
poetry in English was for him like “playing chess or building with blocks.”
That’s exactly how I felt the difference between writing in my native Russian
and in the language that I launched into only in my late 30s.
In many profession-oriented Soviet schools, the
approach to languages used to be rigidly pragmatic: nobody wanted to waste time
on something they wouldn’t use in the future, without an opportunity to travel
abroad. After the collapse of Soviet Union people started traveling, but I
happened to be among the last generation, taught by teachers who never met
foreigners. In my university, I went through five years of engineering training
in disciplines that I wasn’t passionate about, but needed to earn my daily
bread. No subjects in liberal arts were offered. Our brief course in English
approximated to 500 words related to thermodynamics, boiler plants and the
resistance of materials. At the beginning of the 2000s, when I translated
manuals for industrial boilers, I occasionally borrowed from the British
Council videos for my self-education. Although at that time I had nobody to
talk to in English, my effort was reclaimed later, when I met my future
husband, who came from Texas to visit the motherland of his ancestors. I
happened to be his Kiev guide. From the first day in Kiev, my husband had no
problems understanding me. He didn’t even think of me as a “foreigner.”
But in 2007, when I moved to Houston, I realized
just how tall the invisible wall between me and my new environment was, and
that there was no shortcut from years of isolation spent with dictionaries. I
also realized that merging into my local cultural diaspora (Russian-language
theater, etc.) would be like standing on the curb of the buzzing highway where
I wanted to drive. Besides, speaking the same language does not always
guarantee that you will find like-minded people. I missed my distant friends
and semi-humorously, semi-desperately lulled myself with Marina Tsvetaeva’s:
“I
am indifferent among whom…
I’m
banished from – it’s not surprising –
Into
myself…
My
native tongue, which often sung
To
me, as of this day, can’t tempt me.
I’m
indifferent in which tongue
The
passerby misunderstands me.”
About five years ago I felt an urge to draft my first
poem in English. That wasn’t nearly the turning point, when - conceptually,
culturally or linguistically - translating my thoughts was no more necessary.
But it was like the moment when an abscess finally broke and I could begin to
heal. Something had to hurt me into poetry, and it came through my longing to
understand the people around me, to express myself how I used to, in Russian,
among deep, intelligent and humorous people who often gathered in my tiny
kitchen in Donetsk. With all the bright memories, I had to learn how not to
look back: “For where you go I will go... Your people shall be my people.”
Thus, I went to “Inprint” and, for the first time in my life, took a course of
poetry. After the other workshoppers introduced themselves and indicated the
peculiar nuances they wished to polish in their writing, I shocked the audience
by revealing that I came to perfect my generic skills in a new, self-taught
language, and that poetry for me was a matter of survival in my “second life”
in Texas. After three and a half years I published my first book of poetry in
English.
“Confessions” at 3 A.M.
MR:
You mentioned the biographical element of your poetry, the “confessions”, and
place yourself among the near extinct in this regard. I know there are poets who find fault in I poetry. I agree that there are poets whom use the art
as something of a purge, and maybe toward the reader’s expense. I never find your poetry to be guilty of
this. I feel that you use the language
of personal experience to get at deeper truths about your life; and therefore,
life in essence. Poetry can get closer
to this than any other literary construct… so why not push that envelope? With this in mind, could you share something
about the process of creating your At 3 A.M. Triptych, including From the Terrace, Ultima Thule, and Easter Bukowski. From the
Terrace is another favorite of mine.
EP:
As in recipes, it’s about the right ingredients in the right proportions.
Although emotions and experiences don’t make the whole meal, they are the
spices whose scarcity makes even the most virtuosic language insipid. There are
many masterly, intellectual poets whose work, appreciated by elite literary
magazines, fails to raise the heartbeat of audiences at bookstore readings. And
there are a plenty of warm-hearted people whose poetic merit is a humane
message, rather than its unfaceted expression. To different critics, I may fit
into one or the other of these categories, but that’s not my concern so long as
I don’t compromise my own peculiar voice.
My first book in Russian, “White Square,” mainly
included poems of love and work that I wrote in my 20s. Related to the years of
post-Soviet economic collapse and the metal workshop where I carried hefty
pipes and nearly lost an eye while threading them, my ironic poems found
whimsical cultural intersections with imagery inspired by the cinematography of
Tarkovsky, Netherlandish paintings, medieval music and stories of Bulgakov and
Nabokov. Nabokov’s credo, “Beauty and Pity,” which approximates to my
definition of art, perhaps subconsciously correlates to the title of my
English-language book, “Aching Miracle.” Written after many years of silence
and seasoning in a new culture, the poems of this collection revolve around my
middle-aged neighborhood in Texas and the reminiscences of my “first life” in
Europe. (See more in “Five Emerging Houston Poets You Should Know About” where
I also read from the book for Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anis-shivani/video-reading-series-hous_b_8559424.html)
Now, after I have accumulated poems sufficient to
fill a second collection in English, I noticed my recent tendency to write in
“triptychs.” And it’s interesting that you chose for our discussion the only
triptych that appeared in “Aching Miracle.” “At 3 a.m.” describes my experience
of three sleepless nights in a row – three self-lullabies that I drafted at 3
a.m. and then expanded and revised the next day. When I descend into sleep, my
mind revisits clearly visualized streets in various parts of the world where I
once felt connected. A poem “Orlando” (inspired by Virginia Woolf’s character)
serves as a prologue to a free play of such visions in the following three
miniature pieces:
From
the Terrace. The names of lovers from “The Divine
Comedy,” Giorgio Chirico’s “Melancholy of a Beautiful Day” and my almost
forgotten budget holidays in Rimini, where I walked miles to visit Fellini’s
grave, blended into a little etude about music as an alternative to the
infinite slumber of the spheres. I have a cycle of “grounded” Italian poems (Zefiro
Torna, Polyphony, Tales of the Roman Moon, Venetian Aubade, etc.) but this one
- with lovers’ shadows on the Adriatic beach - is as carefree as the sheer
curtain flying from the terrace of my imagination.
Ultima
Thule. Long after years of work in Ukraine and winter
business trips to Germany and Sweden, I finally touched the sublayer of my
nightmares related to manual work, lonesome survivalism and images inspired by
Ingmar Bergman’s “Seventh Seal.” Every Knight plays and eventually loses his
chess game to Death. And every artist tends to return to certain images. The
blue-eyed husky and linen-haired girl of the dunes are apparitions from my
Scandinavian dreams. Nordic landscapes also appear in my poem Reticent Saga:
“several red wooden barns snowbound in windy wastelands.”
Easter
Bukowski. I wrote this poem after my husband and I drove
to Garland, Texas to adopt a declawed and matted “kitten” who we soon
discovered to be a very sick, elderly cat. It was also the day I saw a video
about Russian tanks triumphantly passing the main street of my hometown,
Donetsk. Later, in the same background at the National Drama Theater, the
townspeople pushed and mocked the captured and beaten Ukrainian soldiers like
slaves in ancient times. That was during Easter, the time when, in Texas,
bluebonnets and Indian paintbrushes escort a driver. We stopped for pancakes at
Denny’s and then stayed for a night in a La Quinta, where I read Bukowski. A
few drinks eventually put me to sleep.
The Mirror of Cinematic Inspirations
MR:
I completely agree with your eloquent assessment on the differing ambitions and
desires of poets and poetry. I can
admire them all on their own merits. I
also fully appreciate your desire to stay true to your voice. Half the battle is finding it, creating and
developing it; the other half is having the courage to express it in the purest
distillation. There are many temptations
to tailor a voice to fit in with this society or that department, or even to
make it more immediately relatable.
In all of the hundreds of discussions I’ve have
had with artists over the years, you are the first to mention Tarkovsky. All things came to a brief stop when I saw
his name. His films had an immediate influence
on me when I discovered them in my early twenties. Films such as Andrei Rublev, The Mirror, and The
Sacrifice had a fairly profound effect on my young psyche. I will confess they both scared and amazed
me. Not scared in the sense of
horror….maybe into a more focused sense of reality. It’s been years since I’ve seen his work, yet
there are scenes and images that I don’t believe I will forget. His work was another important step in my
developing concept of art and its relationship to the world.
In keeping with the discussion of unique voices, can you express more on your creative relationship to the work of Tarkovsky….or cinema in general? We have established your passion for music and its dynamic to your poetry. Does cinema have an equal effect? Or maybe in a broader sense, in what ways might your poetry incorporate works of visual art? I know you have touched on this but feel free to elaborate or share more about your ekphrastic poetry.
 |
| from Tarkovsky's Solaris |
In keeping with the discussion of unique voices, can you express more on your creative relationship to the work of Tarkovsky….or cinema in general? We have established your passion for music and its dynamic to your poetry. Does cinema have an equal effect? Or maybe in a broader sense, in what ways might your poetry incorporate works of visual art? I know you have touched on this but feel free to elaborate or share more about your ekphrastic poetry.
EP:
A favorite film-director, Andrei Tarkovsky, suggested that a person needs to
learn at an early stage not to be bored when alone, and that creativity sprouts
from childhood memories that gradually grow into a poetic image-bank. I agree.
A chronic runaway from kindergarten, I definitely wasn’t bothered by solitude
as a child. The magical realism that readers find in my poems reflects the ways
I learned to see and remember things. I fell in love with the cinematography of
Tarkovsky at age 19, during the time of perestroika. At that time, his work
collected dust on the shelves of censors, but the first “video salons” that
popped up around the country somehow obtained copies of his films. On a
hazy-white New Year’s Eve, I sat in a fur coat in an almost empty, cigarette-reeking
movie theater and felt at home in the dreamlike space of Tarkovsky’s memories
in Mirror. Each frame looked like a mesmerizing painting. And I remember
thinking that true poetic cinematography occupies the space where ethical and
esthetical components – a pained conscience and quest for harmony – meet
through a simple, yet deep human story.
 |
| from Ivan's Childhood by Tarkovsky |
You may not find that my poetry borrows any distinct imagery from arthouse movies from different cultures. But cinema, like literature, certainly deepened the dimensions of what I’m capable to see. The same with art: unless I intentionally write ekphrastic poems (like I’ve been doing for installations at Rice Gallery), I don’t write “about” art. However, by revisiting my favorite medieval paintings, ancient rarities and contemporary art, I rekindle my impulse to write even when feel empty. I can’t forget how Tarkovsky’s camera followed Bruegel’s “The Hunters on the Snow” and da Vinci's "Adoration of the Magi" to Bach’s chorales and the “St. Matthew Passion.” These scenes unfolded as slowly and pensively as the scenes with wavering algae and the transforming cosmic ocean in Solaris. Such scenes counter the flow of rushed everyday life. Many people are so constantly tired and depleted that their demand for “cultural” pastime is reduced to unwinding with action-packed, high-tech movies, or with beach reads. The more a person feeds his neural circuits with the immediate rewards of processing “the fast art,” the less chance that he will develop a taste for poetry and poetic cinematography, which are often considered boring, pretentious and slow in contrast to real life.
But what is real? Even a war story, like Terrence
Malick’s adaptation of James Jones’ novel, The
Thin Red Line, can be told on a deeper psychological and artistic level
than a popular “patriotic” movie. Reflecting on the ugliness of the war, this
film is cathartically beautiful and tender. I deeply relate to the character of
Private Witt with his invisible “another world” that he questioned yet always
carried in his heart, resisting to become cruel even in the midst of hell on
the Earth. I remembered him when I wrote about the soldier perishing in a
Guadalcanal rainforest in my poem “Kyoto Dolls,” the whimsical cinematic
kaleidoscope, where you can also find Kirk Douglas’ character from Lonely are the Brave and the
tied-together lovers from Takeshi Kitano’s Dolls.
Beyond Tarkovsky and the well-known, overly discussed masters of Italian
neorealism, French New Wave and the New German Cinema, I’m also drawn to Asian
arthouse – from the impeccable camera angles of Akira Kurosawa and humble
transparency of Yasujirō Ozu to the ardency of the controversial Kim Ki-duk (Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring;
3-Iron).
 |
| Only Lovers Left Alive by Jarmusch |
Curious Music: Projects, “Discoveries,” Inspirations;
Poetry
Community, Diversity of Voices
MR:
Before we conclude I want to thank you again for taking the time to share with
me some of your thoughts and insights into art and poetry. I hope we can resume our discussion at a
later time since I am sure we have only begun to scratch the surface of your
multidimensional poems. Nevertheless, it
has been a privilege to learn more about your work firsthand.
You quoted from Curious Music, a poem coming out
in your next book. Could you tell us something about this book, or any
other projects you are currently working on? What are your latest
inspirations…discoveries….breakthroughs? And could you tell us something
about your relationship to the local poetry community? Do you find
inspiration in the diverse voices and groups in the Houston area and
surrounding communities?
EP:
“The curious music loved by few,” the line that James Wright once wrote in his
copy of Jonathan Swift’s volume, resonated with me in such an unexpected way
that it became my ironic interpretation of poetry itself. We live in an era of anti-intellectualism when complex books go unread and world leaders are chosen on the basis of their populist performance rather than the specifics of their policies.
Poetry lies on the
diametrically opposite side of the conscience spectrum – against the market.
Like a scientist, a genuine poet is a truth-seeker with a razor-sharp focus on
the specifics of multiple realities. As Paul Celan said, “Only truthful hands
write true poems.”
Right now, the only “project” I think about for
further writing is to keep perfecting the efficiency and music in my new
language, to keep reinventing my head with more knowledge while staying true to
the way my heart relates to the world. I’ve stored a truckload of books by
American writers that liberal arts students may take for granted. But those are
my current teachers and their books are the precious discoveries that I’m not
ashamed to make at middle age when I finally can devour trilogies by Updike and
Roth in the original English without dictionaries. I love browsing century old
issues of Poetry magazine where you can casually meet Ezra Pound and T.S.
Eliot. I’m also inspired by reading various accessible works in quantum
physics, cosmology, and neuroscience. Sometimes there are no distinct boundaries
between the fictional and the scientific. Consider the parallels between Philip
K. Dick’s visions and the hypotheses of “The Matrix”-like simulated realities
by the cosmologist Max Tegmark and the theoretical physicist Sylvester James
Gates Jr. Think about Hermann Hesse’s “Game of Beads” in terms of string theory
and the Pythagorean concept of the music of the spheres. Science abounds with
poetry to dilettantes like me.
Spending the past few years in a foreign culture
made me more introverted. What I dreaded after I left walkable European streets
and dear old friends, I gradually developed a taste for. I cherish seclusion. A
silent hour rereading Jorge Luis Borges over a glass of Andean Malbec or
drafting legal ideas before a trial, while a hummingbird flutters above our
cannas, feels like the freedom I longed for. I felt it acutely a couple of
weeks ago when a red-tailed hawk landed on our patio after I finished writing a
Native American-themed poem. Sometimes, when I’m invited to read, I have to make
an effort to be social by reminding myself that it’s an honor to be asked.
Whenever I take part in anthology readings or appear as the featured reader, I
feel privileged to meet so many fine Texan poets. I have enjoyed participating
in numerous readings by the contributors of Texas and Southwest-themed
anthologies by Dos Gatos and Mutabilis Presses. Each voice was memorable and
the editors became extended family. For four years I’ve been in “Poets in the
Loop,” the critique group that has helped me to develop as a poet in a new
language. The nine voices of the PitL are diverse, unique, humane, and I’m
grateful to be the tenth. I’m also thankful to Gulf Coast Poets, who several
times featured me at Webster’s Barnes & Noble and the Friendswood Library.
The audience of this writing community is as hospitable and intelligently
responsive as a poet can only dream about.
 |
| Poets in the Loop |
The diversity of voices that inspire me in
Houston is not limited to the poetry scene. In my predominantly homogenous
coal-mine hometown in East Ukraine, I thought that it would be so invigorating
to live in a kaleidoscope of cultures like in NYC. Now I have settled down in
the United States’ most ethnically diverse city. I think about the team of construction
contractors who my husband, an attorney, and I currently prepare for an
upcoming trial. Around the conference table you’d see the managerial staff from
Calcutta, “illegal workers” from Mexico, African American accountants, my
Texas-born, Irish-Choctaw husband, and yours truly, the locally certified
paralegal from Ukraine. With a variety of backgrounds and accents, we
understand each other because we share common ground. Observing different
people with their struggles, I think that helping everyone with competence and
empathy, like my husband does, is a reason to get out of bed in the morning.
As to poetry, it’s like happiness – a byproduct of how our lives burn. I’m just one of those poets, who write “the curious music loved by few,” hoping to add a drop of beauty and tenderness in this aching world.
Thank you, Matthew, for your thought-provoking
questions that made me reflect on the many subtle topics I hoped to express in
my poems. I am truly grateful to you and the Friendswood Public Library
for your invitation to this interview that coincided with the 10th anniversary
of my arrival in Texas. At that time, with my first visa in my hand, I would’ve
never assumed that someday I’d become a Texan poet.
