One night you go to bed in your ordinary life, only to awaken transformed. Such a transformation occurred in February 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine. Lyudmyla Khershonska’s wrenching, beautiful book of poems, Today Is a Different War, captures the sensation of being a citizen of a developed country on the doorstep of Europe only to have your life upended.
Khersonska combines the personal and the political in this slim volume. She “tumbled out of bed in her cheery pajamas” as “rockets sang outside the window / instead of birds” and comments, in “War. Day 1”:
So the war is here. No one asked it for a visit,
no one made its bed, or set the table
(…)
What a guest—uninvited and scary. I won’t
open up, won’t treat it to a good meal, or put on
my nice dress.
Poems in the early part of the book are deeply personal, depicting the universal horror of war. In “The Ruscists are Firing,” Khersonska writes:
(…) cows cry just like people
and cats cry, and dogs cry,
this dog has deep furrows along her face
from the unending flow of her tears.
The innocent bystanders span species—humans, cows, dogs, cats—and all are traumatized.
As the collection unfolds, Khersonska turns to the outer world, both Russia as the aggressor and other nations that hesitate on the sidelines, hoping the whole thing will go away. She attacks our passivity in “The Fourth Month of Constant Shelling”:
It’s the fourth month of constant shelling.
The world got used to it—
It’s OK to kill and wreck, just not in my
supermarket, my train station.
(…)
The world leaders
have become agents of war.(…)
Later, Khersonska considers war as an international spectacle in “This is Tank Man With His Shopping Bag,” describing the famous Tiananmen Square protestor:
the unknown insurgent geek
he bought some onions and oranges
or whatever you buy to stop a tank
(…)
they shot him point-blank.
tried it out, got a taste. and they’re still shooting.
How does one defend against despair when suffering a ruthless assault amid global indifference? In “Russian Invader, Who’s Forgotten All Chivalry,” Khersonska puts her faith in women. Taking up a huge challenge, the translator does so in rhyme:
(…)
Fear Ukrainian girls, Molotov cocktails in hand,
Fear our women, above all in this strange foreign land.
They didn’t call or invite you, they weren’t waiting for you.
Keep an eye on your obsolete tank—they’ll unscrew
The pedals, rip off your mask, scratch off your face.
Our long nails are the latest in fashion and grace,(…)
Most of the book, though, provides no easy answers but explores the horror of this enormous upheaval. “You Are With Your Country, Wherever You Are” breaks this reader’s heart with its second-person description:
you are with your country, wherever you are.
with its air raids. You huddle,
looking at your watch
(…)
my country’s children nervously pack their things
they sort what they’ve found: shrapnel, bullets, a piece of rusty wire …
the grownups avert their eyes.
While most of this collection deals specifically with the war in Ukraine and its horrific impact, “In a Different Country” can be read in connection with the recent spate of gun violence in the United States:
in a different country, there’s sun and a café down the block
in my country the enemy has turned everything upside down
ruining, breaking, undoing. he keeps us up at night,
This poem took me to the Texas home where the shooter with the AR-15 “keeps us up at night”, and then shot the family who complained.
Khersonska’s slim volume warns us of the speed with which our ordinary middle-class lives, with mirrors, flowers, and dressing tables, can turn upside down. Civilization, she suggests, is a fragile thing and assumes that we abide by what we once thought were common agreements: not to invade peaceful neighbors; not to bomb civilians. Khersonska represents all of us living our peaceful, law-abiding lives and assuming our peaceful intentions and respect for the rule of law imply a widely shared fundamental belief. We have learned this is no longer the case.
Khersonska lays down a challenge in her book’s final poem, “So This is It,” which begins “so this is it. now it’s you who chooses how to live your life.” How do we choose to live our lives? We can no longer assume that our good intentions will save us.
My only critique involves presentation—even without knowing Ukrainian, I would like to see the poems in the original alongside the translations. Did they rhyme in the original? Was the capitalization similarly irregular? In addition, two of the four translators worked individually, while the other pair worked together. I would have enjoyed seeing the different meanings each chose for common words in these powerful pieces.
Khersonska’s work lands like a punch, inspiring me to action. Our ordinary lives depend on the goodwill of ordinary people, which we’ve learned—to our grief and Ukraine’s destruction—cannot be assumed. Read these poems, dry your tears, send a copy to your legislators, donate to a Ukrainian group, and get involved in local politics. Please.
Today Is a Different War, by Lyudmyla Khersonska. Translated by Olga Livshin, Andrew Janco, Maya Chhabra, & Lev Fridman. Arrowsmith Press, May 2023. 54 pages. $18.00, paper.
Ann Leamon’s writing spans the genres and has been published in Tupelo Quarterly, MicroLit Almanac, North Dakota Quarterly, and River Teeth, among others. She holds a BA (Honors) in German from Dalhousie University/University of King’s College, an MA in Economics from the University of Montana, and an MFA in Poetry from the Bennington Writing Seminars. She has been selected for residencies at the Prospect Street Writing House, the Blackfly Writing Program at the Haystack School, Stonecoast Writers Program, and Dorland Mountain Arts Collective. She lives on the coast of Maine with her husband and a Corgi-Lab mix.
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