Vasyl Makhno (, born October 8, 1964, in Chortkiv) is a Ukrainian poet, essayist, and translator. He is the author of nine collections of poetry, including Winter Letters and Other Poems, translated by Orest Popovych (Spuyten Duyvil, 2011) and, most recently, I want to be Jazz and Rock’n’Roll (Ternopil, Krok, 2013). He has also published two books of essays, The Gertrude Stein Memorial Cultural and Recreation Park (2006) and Horn of Plenty (2011). Makhno has translated Zbigniew Herbert’s and Janusz Szuber’s poetry from Polish into Ukrainian. His poems and essays have been translated into 25 languages, and he is the 2013 recipient of Serbia’s Povele Morave Prize in Poetry. Makhno currently lives in New York City. in Poetry International Rotterdam
Biography The poet Vasyl Makhno was born in Chortkiv, in the Ukrainian province of Ternopil, in 1964. After completing his studies at the Pedagogical Institute in Ternopil, he graduated in literature and worked as a lecturer at the college. In 1999 his doctoral thesis about Bohdan-Ihor Antonych, a prominent representative of Ukrainian modernism, was published.На дві країни. Як український письменник Василь Махно живе в Америці . Українська правда. Життя, 2 травня 2018
Makhno’s early collections of poetry, including (1996; t: The book of hills and hours) and Liutnevi elehii ta inshi virshi (1998; t: February elegies and other poems) are still in this modernist tradition. After his travels to Western Europe and after teaching at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków in the late nineties, he moved to New York City in 2000. His collection of poetry, Plavnyk ryby (2002; t: The fish fin) – half written in Europe, half in the United States is a visible testimony to this transition. In Makhno’s "complex metaphorical imagery and dense verbal texture of his poetry, as well as the nearly anarchic utilization of grammar in his works, with virtually no punctuation", new images emerged (translator Michael M. Naydan). Verve and variety, as well as the profane, now dominate the observant cadence of his free verse and create a stimulating contrast to his weighty diction and nature metaphors. "Our Ukrainian culture... is part of the tradition that assumes a romanticized approach to poets, to poetry writing and so on. Because of that, various taboos took root: you can write about this, but not about that. Thus, for many people it is hard to let go of these stereotypes", the poet commented in an interview about developments in recent Ukrainian poetry, which he has helped to carry forward.
"Makhno poetic melos is shaped by a number of prosodic systems – vers libre, metric versification, stanzaic arrangement, thus rendering it richly polyphonic. It is rich in resonant alliterations, internal and disjoint rhymes without however becoming overly musical and without impeding its central function – its narrative propensity". - John Fizer, Professor-Emeritus at Rutgers University
"With a foundation in the international community of letters, Winter Letters reminds us of the universal power of art". -Judith Baumel about the collection Winter Letters
"Whoever believes in the power of language and of imagery to first stun then capture rather than explain reality will also love these poems. Makhno gift is his meticulous riffs fed by memory and imagination. Everything superfluous is cut out and concentrated into a single intensity that blows through the reader like a saxophone riff or a late-night blizzard that overtakes her/him in the wintry orchards of New York City streets". - Dzvinia Orlowsky about the collection Winter Letters
"Makhno’s living speech of the reality of his homeland is combined with his strive for the new discoveries, and together they create rich and poignant poetry. It is the living speech of the new Ukrainian poetry, liberated from the discourse of liberation. Or perhaps it is not quite so; perhaps, poetry is the space of silences between home and the brave new world; between old home and new home; poetry is exempt". - Oksana Lutsyshyna about the collection Winter Letters
"Vasyl Makhno celebrates New York with all its ups and downs, even if at first he does so with a dose of considerable hesitation if not outright reluctance. His New York comes across as a site of archaeological importance, a site in which he digs layer upon layer of textual deposits left by his predecessors and contemporaries". - Maria Rewakowicz about the collection Cornelia Street Café
Bibliography
Collections Poetry In Ukrainian: Skhyma (Schyma). 1993. Samotnist’ Tsezaria (Loneliness of Caesar). 1994. Knyha pahorbiv ta hodyn (The Book of Hills and Hours). 1996. Liutnevi elehii ta inshi virshi (February Elegies and Others Poems). 1998. Plavnyk ryby (The Fish’s Fin). 2002. 38 virshiv pro N’iu-Iork i deshcho inshe (38 Poems About New York And Something Else). 2004. Cornelia Street Café. 2007 Zymovi lysty (Winter Letters). 2011 Ia khochu buty dzhazom i rok-n-rolom (I want to be Jazz and Rock’n’Roll). 2013 Jerusalem poems. 2016 Paperovyi mist (Paper bridge). 2017
Prose Dim v Beyting Hollow (The house in Baiting Hollow). 2015 Vichnyi kalendar (The eternal calendar). 2019
Anthology Deviatdesiatnyky: Antolohiia novoi ukrains’koi poezii (Poets of Nineties: An Anthology of New Ukrainian Poetry). Edited by Vasyl Makhno. Ternopil, Lileia 1998.
Translations from Polish Zbigniew Herbert. Struna svitla, 1996. Janusz Szuber. Spiimanyi u sit’, 2007
Literary Criticism Khudozhnii svit Bohdana-Ihoria Antonycha (The Artistic World of Bohdan-Ihor Antonych). 1999.
Essays Park kultury i vidpochynku imeni Gertrudy Stain (The Gertrude Stein Memorial Culture and Recreation Park), 2007 Kotyllasia torba (Horn of Plenty), 2011 Okolytsi ta pohranychchia (Neighborhoods and borders), 2019. Usdovzh okeanu na roveri (On a bike along the ocean), 2020.
Plays Coney Island, 2006 Bitch/Beach Generation, 2007
Books in English translation Thread And Selected New York Poems, 2009 Winter Letters: & Other Poems, 2011
Books in Polish translation Wedrowcy. Poznan, 2003 34 wiersze o Nowym Jorku i nie tylko. Wroclaw, 2006 Nitka, Sejny. 2009 Dubno, kolo Lezajska. Lezajsk, 2013 Listy i powietrze. Lublin, 2015 Kalendarz wieczności. Warsaw, 2021
Books in Russian translation «Куры не летают». Kharkov, 2016 Частный комметарий к истории. Dnipro, 2018 Вечный календарь. Kharkov, 2021
Books in Serbian translation Crna rupa poezije. Filip Visnic, 2013 Свадбарски купус. Beograd 2017
Book in Romanian translation Fiecare obiect îşi are locul său: poezii alese. Craiova, Scrisul Românesc Fundația Editura, 2009
Book in German translation Das Haus in Baiting Hollow. Leipzig 2020
Critical writings about Vasyl Makhno; Chernetsky, Vitaly. From Anarchy to Connectivity to Cognitive Mapping: Contemporary Ukrainian Writers of the Younger Generation Engage with Globalization Canadian-American Slavic Studies; 2010, Vol. 44 Issue 1-2, p. 102 Lutzyshyna, Oksana. “Winter Letters” Across Time and Space. The Ukrainian Weekly. 2012, June 10, p. 10 Rewakowicz, Maria. Thread and Selected New York Poems. Journal of Ukrainian Studies;2010/2011, Vol. 35/36, p. 391 Rudnytzky, Leonid. A Poetical Voice of the Ukrainian Diaspora: Random Notes on the Poetry of Vasyl Makhno. Ukrainian Quarterly; Spring-Winter 2012, Vol. 68 Issue 1-4, p. 158
Awards International Morava Poetry Prize (2013) BBC Ukraine Book of the year (2015) Encounter: The Ukrainian-Jewish Literary Prize (2020)
References
External links
Web-page about Winter Letters at Spuyten Duyvil Poems by Vasyl Makhno at AGNI Profile and essay by Vasyl Makhno at Krytyka Profile and poems by Vasyl Makhno at Biuro Literackie
Poems in English in SolLitMag in Interlitq Mad Hatters' Review
Poems in Spanish in contrACultura
Interview with Vasyl Makhno in Poetry International Rotterdam
Interview with Vasyl Makhno by Alexander J. Motyl in Červená Barva Press Vasyl Makhno in Israel: “The Interpenetration and Interaction Between Our Worlds Are Obvious” The City and the Writer: In Staten Island with Vasyl Makhno When you write about Galcia you cannot ignore its multiculturalism
Festivals internationales literaturfestival berlin Festival Internacional de Poesía de Medellín