Maria G. Rewakowicz
From Spain with Love, or Is There a ‘Spanish School’ in Ukrainian Literature?
With regard to the thematic innovations introduced by the New York Group1, the voice of Spain and Latin America assumes a role that cannot be lightly dismissed2. The development of a poetic idiom for some poets in the group was predicated to a large extent on their intimate knowledge of poetic works by such literary giants as Pablo Neruda, Federico García Lorca, Juan Ramón Jiménez, and Antonio Machado, to name just a few. While the degree and intensity of Spanish/Latin American influences vary from poet to poet, or, as in the case of Emma Andijewska and Bohdan Rubchak, amount to nil3, nevertheless, if one approaches the poetry of the New York Group in its totality, this ‘Spanish turn’ is one of those factors that clearly define the group's uniqueness and cohesiveness. To my knowledge, no other Ukrainian poet or group of poets have incorporated the Spanish themes in such a systematic manner and with so much enthusiasm4.
The concept of a ‘national school’ in literature, judging by its application in the historical accounts of specifically Polish and Russian Romantic literatures5, entails a considerable degree of fascination with a region or a country, its people, landscapes, lore and customs as reflected in the works of a poet or a writer whose national origin and/or language differs from that of the people described. In other words, one can easily infer from such practice that it is literary content alone that justifies the usage of this concept. In this paper, however, I shall argue that such an approach is too narrow for the description of the New York Group's love for things Spanish because it does not allow the inclusion of aspects other than thematic. Thematics, while the most conspicuous, is not the only factor that needs to be brought to the surface. My coinage ‘Spanish turn’ also entails two other facets, namely the production of numerous Ukrainian translations of Spanish-language poetry and the presence of influences that actually transcend the Spanish content. I am referring here not so much to the influences perceivable on a thematic level, but on a formative level, i.e., those having to do with shaping up each individual poetic personality. This latter category is no doubt the subtlest and, perhaps, the most controversial one, because hardly any poet readily admits such influences in her or his oeuvre.
Let me first catalogue the group's achievements in the sphere of translation, specifically from the Spanish. Andijewska and Rubchak aside, the remaining five poets of the New York Group have all been active in bringing Spanish-language poetry to the Ukrainian reader. In 1958 Ihor Kostetsky edited and published the book Vybranyi Garsiia L'orka for which he invited among others Yuriy Tarnawsky, Zhenia Vasyl'kivs'ka and Bohdan Boychuk to contribute their translations and they did indeed. Overall, however, not that many books of Ukrainian translations pertaining to Spanish-language literatures have appeared in the West, which, in a way, is understandable considering the limited resources of the émigré community. The other works of translation worth mentioning are Juan Ramón Jiménez's Pliatero i ia [Platero and I] in Boychuk's rendering published in 1968, García Lorca's Iak kokhavsia don Perlimplin z Belisoiu v sadu [The Love of Don Perlimplin for Belisa in Their Orchard], translated by Tarnawsky and published in 1967, and two books in Vira Vovk's translation, the first being Pablo Neruda's long poem Verkhiv'ia Machu Pichu [The Heights of Macchu Picchu, 1970] and the second — Lorca's Chotyry dramy [Four Plays, 1974]. A bulk of translations, however, was produced as direct contributions to the group's organ, a yearly publication Novi poezii [New Poetry, 1959-1971]. This journal introduced the poetry of the following Spanish-language authors: Pablo Neruda, Cesar Vallejo, Jorge Carrera Andrade, Vicente Aleixandre, Juan Ramón Jiménez, Rafael Alberti, Miguel Hernandez, Federico García Lorca, and Antonio Machado. Collectively, their poems amount to approximately two thirds of all translations included in Novi poezii.
By far, however, the most engaging aspect of the ‘Spanish School’ phenomenon is the group's utilization of Spanish thematic material. Octavio Paz, writing about poetry in the Spanish language, calls it «revelry and funereal dance, erotic dancing and mystical flight» (Bow and the Lyre 75). Perhaps it is this unique combination of Eros, death, and mysticism that attracted the young Ukrainian poets to Spanish poetic treasures. Of course, each poet of the group has incorporated the Spanish heritage in his/her peculiar way: as a background for expressing personal drama or as a pretext for experimentation (Tarnawsky), as a vehicle for contemplation on love, beauty, life, death (Boychuk), as a means to infuse Ukrainian literature with certain exotic flavor (Vovk, Vasyl'kivs'ka), and, finally, as a channel for giving readers a very personalized picture of Spain, imbued with individual impressions, experience, and reflection (Kylyna).
The presence of Spanish themes in the poetry of Vasyl'kivs'ka is somewhat scant and its significance rather marginal. This marginality stems mostly from the fact that Vasyl'kivs'ka left the group and literature quite early, having written just one collection of poetry, Korotki viddali [Short Distances, 1959]. And yet this book includes the poem entitled «Flamenco» which deftly captures the spirit of the famed Spanish Gypsy style dance and music. It describes the mournful sound of guitars, the hoarse voices of male singers, and the tense movements of dancers' bodies with an intensity usually associated with flamenco:
Хриплим відламком
старечий голос —
рвучким стаккато
струни гітари.
Брязнули вістря
скреготом сталі,
зойкнули стрілами,
болем зламались.
Гортанним відгуком
згадка — печери,
босі циганки,
вежі Севільї. (27)
An elderly voice is
like hoarse splints,
the guitar's sound —
an ardent staccato.
Blades clashed with
a clang of steel,
shrieked with arrows,
broke in pain.
A throaty voice is
a reminder of caves,
barefooted Gypsy girls,
the towers of Seville.
What deserves attention in this poem is Vasyl'kivs'ka's masterful matching of the poem's rhythm with the actual content. The staccato of the guitar she refers to in the first stanza also characterizes the rhythm of the whole poem. But the three poems that constitute the cycle «Flamenco» are her only contribution to Spanish thematics. Overall her interest in Spain, by and large, was confined to translations.
Vira Vovk's poetic output in comparison to Vasyl'kivs'ka is considerable, therefore the number of poems dealing with Spain and Latin America is proportionally more substantial. Still, the number of poems directly incorporating Spanish content is rather limited. One should emphasize, however, that it is a Latin American flavor that prevails, more likely because Vovk emigrated to Brazil and settled in Rio de Janeiro6. Her poems, especially in Chorni akatsii [Black Acacias, 1961] often carry as titles the names of the countries visited (e.g. Chile, Mexico) and can almost be perceived as concise poetic travelogues expressing the poet's impressions and observations. Yet they seem to lack the spirit and immediacy of experience; they seem to be distant and devoid of personal perspective:
Мехіко
Хоч добре, що ластівка-стежка
Летіла собі між вульканами
І що стелилися вітру
Злотні, незаймані трави.
І добре, що синє кладовище
Було західною колискою,
Що розцвітало каміння
В оселі, церкви й піраміди.
І кактусів бурі органи
Сурмили зненацька про сонце,
Про місяць крутих візерунків.
Ще в візії Таско засяє.
Й ростуть кривобокі святині
З хиткої землі в Ґвадалюпе. (32)
Mexico
It's good that a trail like a swallow
Flew between the volcanoes
And that goldtinged innocent grass
Unfurled itself for the wind.
It's also good that a blue cemetery
Was the sunset's cradle
And that stones blossomed
In the dwellings, churches, and pyramids.
The brown organs of cactuses
Suddenly trumpeted about the sun,
And about the moon of sharp patterns.
Taxco will shine in vision.
The tilted sides of sanctuaries
Grow out of the unsteady ground in Guadalupe.
In two other poetic books, namely Elehii [Elegies, 1956] and Kappa khresta [The Kappa of a Cross, 1969], unlike in Chorni akatsii, Spanish/Latin American themes do not occur for their own sake, but, rather, are inextricably interwoven in the fabric of the poet's personal reflections on God, human justice, and fate. The first elegy, entitled «Toreadory i heroi» [Toreadors and Heroes], for example, brings forth the Spanish people's treasured tradition of bullfighting only in order to undermine the assumed heroism of matadors and to give a spur for subsequent ethical ruminations, not without a strong mystical underpinning. Yet it is this first ‘Spanish’ part that exudes genuine passion and compassion, and makes the whole elegy poetically satisfying:
Тореадори!
Камелії зарясніли над стрункістю смаглих тіл,
І Мадрід, отяжілий минулим, і Севілья
Зідхають за ними шелестячими кедрами.
… А в рудий пісок арени всякає кров,
І тур міцногрудий завернув голубіючі очі:
«Навіщо, людино?»
Тореадори!
Горять мандоліни, перляться оплески з рук рожевих:
… Несуть для тореадорів
Відрізані вуха і слинявий тура язик…
Тореадори! Ви посіли землю!
(Давніше інквізитори палили відьом;
Їм теж віддавали прилюдну шану,
І всі подивляли їх міць). (7)
Toreadors!
Camellia covered the slenderness of brown bodies,
And Madrid, heavy with the past, and Seville
Sigh for them with rustling cedars.
… And the blood sinks into the rufous sand of arena,
And a bull with a mighty trunk turned his bluish eyes:
«What for, man?»
Toreadors!
Mandolins burn, the applaud spills from pink hands like pearls:
… They carry for the toreadors
the bull's cutoff ears and slobbery tongue…
Toreadors! You inherit the earth!
(Once inquisitors burned witches;
Those men also earned public respect
And everyone admired their might.)
But to talk about the consistent presence of Spanish and/or Latin American themes, is really to talk about Tarnawsky, Kylyna, and Boychuk. It is these three poets who truly deserve attention, not only because each of them has brought forth a book of poetry wholly devoted to some aspect of Spanish-language culture, but also because they seem to extol in their poems the spirit of the Spanish people. Ernest Hemingway in his famous book on bullfighting Death in the Afternoon characterizes this spirit as follows:
If the people of Spain have one common trait it is pride and if they have another it is common sense and if they have a third it is impracticality. Because they have pride they do not mind killing; feeling that they are worthy to give this gift. As they have common sense they are interested in death and do not spend their lives avoiding the thought of it and hoping it does not exist only to discover it when they come to die. (264)
The theme of death permeates the poetry of all the poets in the New York Group. But there can be no doubt that Tarnawsky, Boychuk, and Kylyna display that interest in death in a particularly pronounced way. Moreover, pride and intense emotionality are characteristic of Boychuk's poetry; Tarnawsky's texts, on the other hand, evince a strong aura of masculinity (which is by and large very much in tune with the perceived macho attitude of the majority of Spanish/Latin American males)7; and finally, Kylyna's ‘Spanish’ poems underscore certain fatalism and the tragic aspects of life.
In 1964 Bohdan Boychuk published his fourth collection of poetry entitled Virshi dlia Mekhiko [Poems for Mexico]. This tiny book of fifteen poems, in which for the first time the poet dispensed with his usual technique of vers libre, has its origin in a trip made to Mexico in 1962. Boychuk avoids, however, the passive role of an observer who, like an ordinary tourist jots down the impressions of things encountered. He personifies Mexico, makes it a woman, and then falls in love with her. The eroticism thus introduced emerges as a paramount characteristic of the book. It welds into a coherent whole the feelings, the impressions, the landscapes and the people:
А ти торкнулася чомусь мене тремтячою рукою,
і чудотворними здавалися твої уста
від хлипання свічок, де гнулись аналої
під воском молитов, розтоплених на теплих і вогких губах
жінок, що простелялись по землі хрестами:
і я схотів тебе. (8)
You touched me with the trembling hand
and your lips seemed miraculous
through flickering sobs of candles bending
over women lying cross-like on the ground
whose prayers melted on their moist lips:
then I desired you.
This personalized vision of Mexico, combined with the typical Boychuk metaphysical bent, yields poetry that foregrounds the emotive and existential aspects of human experience. It also points to the fragility and temporality of life:
Час затримався тут пів дороги,
задихнувся і впав на горі,
і проїде з обличчям серйозним і вбогим
темношкірий Христос на ослі.
А понурі, глухі барабани
б'ють у глиняні мозки домів,
що влипають до скель кам'яними хребтами,
і стікає череп'я з дахів
на вузькі вулиці. І свобідно
час не ступить сюди ні звідсіль, —
а простягнені в нутрощі руки по срібло
остигають на серці землі. (16)
Time pauses halfway up —
gasps and collapses on the hill.
A dark-skinned Christ rides a donkey
with a poor man's face.
Hollow drums beat over
the clay skulls of the houses
whose spines grow into the rocks;
rooftiles melt and flow
down narrow streets. Time
finds it hard to come or go,
and the hands grasping for silver
stiffen in the deep earth.8
(Memories of Love 93)
Critics were not particularly generous to Boychuk following his debut in 1957. With the appearance of Virshi dlia Mekhiko this trend was reversed. The book was warmly received and the reviews were positive. Iurii Dyvnych (a pseudonym of Lavrinenko), for example, praised this book for a stylistic continuity:
…суцільність цього твору «Вірші для Мехіко» твориться всім: сюжетом, внутрішньою напругою єдности антитез і контрастів; важкуватим, мов кроки долі, ритмом; густим мов застигла кров колоритом, нарешті фаталістичним відтинком настрою, і диханням на всі велетенські легені цієї країни. («Mekhikans'ko-ukrains'ke vydyvo» 25)
…the continuity of this work «Virshi dlia Mekhiko» unfolds on every level: on the level of subject matter; on the level of inner tension engendered by the unity between antitheses and contrasts; on the level of rhythm, heavy like the steps of fate; on the level of colour, thick like a harden blood; finally, on the level of atmosphere, tinged with fatality and breathed through the grand lungs of this country.
Boychuk reintroduced Spanish thematic material almost a decade later in the poem entitled «Dovha podorozh II» [A Long Journey II] which was included in his selected poems, published in 1983 (cf. his Virshi, vybrani i peredostanni 120-22). «Dovha podorozh» represents a series of interwoven narrative and lyrical reminiscences following the trip to Spain Boychuk made in 1969. Yet these prose poems and song-like interludes transcend a mere discriptiveness and, in fact, contain very few references to the actual places visited. Yes, the poet does mention Toledo, Granada, Valencia, but, in the main, he is interested not so much in conveying the picturesque details of Spanish cities as in poetically re-creating the atmosphere and spirit of the Spanish people, interlaced with his own meditations on love, death, and God. Boychuk's «Dovha podorozh» truly matches Paz's characterization of Spanish poetry, mentioned earlier: it is itself «a funereal dance,» «erotic dancing» as well as «a mystical flight.»
Undoubtedly, however, at the core of the New York Group's Spanish phenomenon lies the poetry of Yuriy Tarnawsky and Patricia Kylyna. Both have become fluent in the language, both actually went to Spain and lived there for more than a year, and finally, both published books directly related to that sojourn. Here is how Kylyna describes this experience:
Yuriy and I were in and out of Spain frequently between 1964 and 1971. We went there because we wanted to take a sabbatical from our jobs and Spain was then the cheapest place in Europe to live (the peseta was then very devalued against the dollar), but also because we wanted to immerse ourselves in Spanish culture. We lived there full time for a year and a half, from 1964 into mid-1965 and spent a month of every year there after that, till 1972. During those years we traveled all over Spain… there was hardly a remote corner that we didn't poke into, enjoying the diversity of Spain's cultural and ethnic heritage9.
Patricia Kylyna's book Rozhevi mista [The Pink Cities, 1969] reflects this diversity aptly and refreshingly. These poems could also be labeled ‘poetic travelogues’ since by and large they describe the places visited, yet the treatment of the subject, unlike the case in Vira Vovk's poetry, is exhaustive and very personal. The moods, attitudes and everyday details of city life, observed during the numerous trips, are almost always used for subjective effects. Kylyna captures not only the beauty of Spanish cities, but also presents her own reflections. Stylistically diverse, often written in long but flexible lines, Rozhevi mista foregrounds the narrative approach to poetry and thereby points to Kylyna's natural tendency toward storytelling. The contemporary scene is frequently blended with historic, literary, and art references as, for example, in the poem «Toledo:»
Ель Ґреко каже правду: Толедо підноситься
у небо так, як він його намалював.
Я входжу в картину, немов крізь дзеркало:
на вулиці люди стають обнаженими святими,
і там, на червоних горбах за Толедо,
під оливами, непритомніють тисячі Христів.
У вітрі, бешкет оксамитних шат. Скляні очі.
Тіла видовжуються, відлітають. Відрубують голову
римському воїнові. Золоті ґотицькі вівтарі верхом у низ.
Собор відходить під вітрилами. З'єднуються полумені
двох свічок. Світло! Екстаза! Шизофренія!
Наркомани! Астигматизм! І раптом
таксі пролітає крізь шати, трублячи страшно,
і лишаються вузькі вулиці, що тхнуть сечею і ладаном,
і базар, де продають арабський посуд, капусту і дзеркала.
Недаром Ель Ґреко, коли хотів
малювати портрети апостолів,
шукав натурників у божевільні Толедо. (27)
El Greco was right. Toledo lifts up toward
the sky exactly the way he painted it.
I enter the painting as if through a mirror:
people on the streets become bare saints,
and on the red hills outside Toledo,
thousands of Christs faint under olive trees.
In the wind's a turmoil of velvet garments. Glassy eyes.
The bodies elongate and fly off. A Roman warrior
is beheaded. The golden Gothic altars hang upside down.
A cathedral sails away. The flames of two candles
unite. Light! Ecstasy! Schizophrenia!
Drug addicts! Astigmatism! Suddenly
a taxi cab flies through honking viciously,
then only narrow streets remain, smelling of urine and incense,
and the marketplace where Arabic pottery, cabbage and mirrors are sold.
No wonder that El Greco
when painting apostles,
looked for models in a madhouse.
Rozhevi mista also includes two long poems, often considered Kylyna's best texts in Ukrainian, entitled «Polum'ianyi byk» [Fiery Bull] and «Plach na smert' Antoniia Risa Pastora» [Lament for Antonio Riso Pastor]10. Both deal with the famous Spanish tradition of bullfighting. An intensity of tragedy and a level of empathy expressed in these two poems parallel mastery of language and freshness of images. But underlying all this is the pervasively existentialist theme of death with its absurdity and randomness, related poetically in a manner that mixes compassion, anger and awe.
Yuriy Tarnawsky's passion for things Spanish has found many outlets. Thematically there are many allusions to Spain even in his early collections, most notably in Popoludni v Pokipsi [Afternoons in Poughkeepsie, 1960], but the culmination arrived in 1969 with the publication of prose poems entitled Bez Espanii [Without Spain]. In this book (highly experimental in its conception), the vision of Spain is internalized to the point that it dissolves into various parts of the lyrical hero's body. This ‘anatomical’ approach underscores the obsessiveness of reminiscences over a farewell with a lover, i.e. Spain, and at the same time elevates body rather than mind as a source of memories. Bez Espanii has a well-defined structure. Part One is composed as a series of poems depicting various phases of departure and arrival, thereby contrasting the beauty of the lost lover (Spain) with a mundane existence in the United States, but both come about not so much as descriptions of external realities of either country but as verbalizations of internal states of the lyrical hero, rooted in the unconscious and the irrational. Part Two consists of a series of addresses directed to specific places in Santander (a city in which Tarnawsky and Kylyna resided while in Spain) as well as to other Spanish cities, interspersed with a number of interludes titled «Tysha» [Silence] in which the lyrical hero is transported back to the present time. However, whether we are dealing with the hero's reminiscences or his ‘here and now,’ both are conveyed in a manner relying on a freely associative stream of consciousness (Grabowicz 168). Moreover, frequent surrealist juxtapositions occasionally undermine the logic and comprehensibility as, for example, in the excerpt below:
Звернення V
(Валенсія)
Чи в килимі, чи в моїх костях, чи в цій фарбі, близькій до паперу і недалекій від крови, міститься твій вогонь і простір, що відбулися без моїх уст, і моє обличчя? Я переступаю слова, і думки, і свою шкіру, і напрямлюю руки до твоєї води, що витекла крізь дельти площ до шкаралущ паристих чисел і океанів, та знаходжу лише поверхні в моїх пальцях, і папір у моїх устах, і квадрат килима, який намарне намагається вмістити моє тіло. О, поверни до мене обличчя твоєї речовини, і збери полки моїх кроків і усмішок, помножених твоїми вітами, які я зоставив на твоїх тінях і цеглі, і згуртуй свої рухомі білі мости, і пальми, з вершниками в вітах і в корінні, і безстрашні музеї з моторизованими картинами, і пошли їх мені на поміч, до піль бою під моїми нігтями і на моїх вилицях! (41)
Address V
(Valencia)
Is it in the rug or in my bones, or, perhaps, in this ink close to the sheet of paper and my blood that your fire and space are held without my lips and face? I pass beyond words, thoughts, and my skin, directing my hand to your water which ran out through the delta of squares to the shells of even numbers and oceans, but I find only the surfaces of my fingers and a paper in my mouth, and a contour of the rug which in vain strives to hold my body, Oh, turn to me the face of your substance, and gather the regiments of my steps and smiles, multiplied by your branches which I left in the shadows and in the bricks, unite your white drawbridges and palm trees with riders in the branches and in the roots, and fearless museums with motorized paintings and send them all to help me in the battlefields under my nails and on my cheek-bones!
When Bez Espanii was first published in the journal Suchasnist', it triggered a flow of angry letters from the readers, forcing the editor in chief, Wolfram Burghardt, to conduct an interview with Yuriy Tarnawsky in order to dispel at least some concerns brought forth. This interview, provocatively titled «Bez Espanii chy bez znachennia?» [Without Spain or Without Meaning?], dealt with issues concerning the communicative role of poetry and, to some extent, forced Tarnawsky to explain his approach to poetry in general, and in Bez Espanii in particular. The poet emphasized the significance of perception on an emotional rather than rational level, and reiterated the fact that this long poem reflects his emotional states following the departure from Spain. It becomes clear from the context that the «emotional level» Tarnawsky refers to in his interview is essentially equal to what is generally called the unconscious. Disregarding his quite idiosyncratic views on reception (whereby the reader ought to be able to re-create the author's emotions and, as it stands, has very little autonomy), the fact remains that the real subject of the poet's texts is he himself:
…я хотів вглибитися в свою свідомість, віднайти те, що я шукав, закодувати це в найпростішій мові, і це все. Тоді я припускав і далі припускаю, що коли хтось читатиме ці картини, вони відтворять у нього, на емоційному рівні, емоції приблизно того роду, що й мої. (14)
…I wanted to penetrate deep into my own consciousness, to find there something I was looking for, to encode it in the simplest language, and that is it. I assumed then, and still assume, that when someone reads these pieces, s/he will re-create on the emotional level emotions approximately of the same kind as my own.
When in the mid-1970s, instigated by the trip he made to Mexico in 1975, the poet re-introduced Spanish American motifs in his poetry, he did so as a background for unfolding his own personal drama (with all the emotions and concerns) rather than for sharing his own impressions. As in Bez Espanii, Mexico here becomes a mere pretext for dealing with his own subjectivity. The text I am referring to is titled «Operene sertse» [Fledged Heart]11. This long poem, comprised of seventeen short-line parts, gives very few details about the places visited. In fact, if not for the author's footnotes12, one could hardly (if at all) guess what region or city the poet alludes to (cf. parts 1-4; 6-10; 12). But even the poems that include references to specific places (like those, for example, about Mexico City) lack the reality of a concrete geographical entity. The poet does not reflect the city, its people and atmosphere, rather it is the city that reflects him and his inner emotional states. In this poem the only clue we have that the action takes place in Mexico City is the title, for it includes a reference to the «Pink Zone,» a fashionable district in the Mexican capital. Otherwise, what we encounter here are not the details and dynamics of the Pink Zone, but the personal, inexorably existential, struggles to make life livable and meaningful.
It is evident from the poems analyzed above that each poet of the New York Group who has incorporated Spanish and/or Spanish American content in his/her poetry, approached it differently and utilized it for various effects. My contention is, however, that underlying this ‘Spanish turn’ among them (no matter how heterogeneous on the surface) was their being very much in tune with the prevailing trends and tastes within the literary establishment in the United States or in the West in general. In 1954 the Nobel Prize in literature, for example, was awarded to Ernest Hemingway, a writer who happened to be a champion for things Spanish in American literature13. Two years later the same prize went to the Spanish poet Juan Ramón Jiménez. The poetry of Pablo Neruda and Cesar Vallejo was widely admired and extensively translated by such young (at the time) American poets as Robert Bly and James Wright. These are but a few indicative instances of a rather pervasive fascination with Spanish culture at the time of the New York Group's formation. Patricia Kylyna conveys this climate quite succinctly:
Typically, liberal and leftie young American writers of the 1950s and 1960s admired whatever they could learn of leftie and liberal European and Latin American poetry. It was part of a new internationalism in young U.S. vision, and an effort to end our Yankee parochialism. The New York Group members had similar tastes and vision, though their internationalism came from being dragged through various countries as war refugee children, and speaking various languages to survive. So García Lorca and Neruda were big favorites with the New York Group14.
Therefore, the variety of translation projects that the members of the group were involved in, reflected as much their own personal tastes as those that were generally in literary vogue at the time. Reading extensively Spanish-language poetry, rendering it into Ukrainian, keeping step with the prevailing literary trends did have a tremendous impact on the emergence and poetic growth of each poet thus discussed. Again, this impact varies from poet to poet. Nevertheless the influences on the formative level are discernible and worthy of closer scrutiny.
Thematically and stylistically Tarnawsky's early poetry, and especially his first collection Zhyttia v misti [Life in the City, 1956], can be traced back to Pablo Neruda. Tarnawsky himself draws a parallel here, noting that the title of his first book was suggested by Neruda's Residencia en la tierra [Residence on Earth], but he is unwilling to go further than that: «I was haunted by the topic of death and Neruda's poetry seemed to release me from it because it dealt with it. When I put together ‘Life in the City’ I think the title was partly suggested by his ‘Residencia en la tierra.’ But it also alluded to the subject of a large industrialized city, which stifled me after the peaceful Ulm, in Germany, and to existentialism (’life’).»15 Yet when in 1958 Patricia Kylyna submitted Tarnawsky's and her own poems for publication in the journal The Fifties, this is the response she received from the editor, Robert Bly:
In the case of Mr. Tarnawsky's book, I think the translations are good, and the poetry shows great ability, but when I read many of them together, they seem to me too much like Neruda. A group of poems not only creates images and music, but also a personality which stands behind the poems. I think when we say poetry is new, we mean that behind it, we can sense a new personality created by it. But behind these poems the personality I see, as in the third part of «Thoughts About My Death,» is not new to me, but one I have seen before in Neruda. This is not surprising or terrible; you both are very young, but I think I would try to get rid of these echoes; and I think gradually, as you write more, the poetry will become more and more like yourself, with much more of your own accent, and I would definitely like to see more later. (5 May 1959)
What connects Neruda's Residence on Earth and Tarnawsky's Zhyttia v misti is the same existential anguish expressed as the individual's doomed struggle to overcome alienation, because he is destined to being an outsider, facing in the end nothing but his own death. The enchantment with existentialism and profound pessimism found in Zhyttia v misti is as pronounced as in Residence on Earth. Yet this thematic affinity is complemented also by the closeness in poetic style, including versification techniques and syntax. According to Marjorie Agosin, «the techniques characteristic of Residence on Earth are the syncopated use of words, the absence of adverbs and adjectives, and the constant use of similes that invoke incongruous images» (40). Tarnawsky's love for the use of similes, anaphoras, prosaic rhetoric (labeled by Rubchak as ‘anti-poetry’-- cf. his «Poeziia antypoezii») might have had its source of inspiration in Neruda's poetry, for these poetic devices are the hallmarks of his poetry as well. However, one can definitely say that by the time Bez Espanii appeared, Tarnawsky managed to cast away Nerudian echoes. Yet, undoubtedly, this Chilean poet was his hero in the beginning of his poetic career and someone, who in many ways, haunted him throughout much of his adult life, despite the poet's declarations to the contrary. But, like Residence on Earth to Spanish-language poetry, Zhyttia v misti undeniably furnished a new modern diction to poetry in Ukrainian.
As for the other two poets I have mainly focused on, namely Bohdan Boychuk and Patricia Kylyna, one can also say that they too have had their favorite Spanish poets. Kylyna, for example, was undoubtedly at first influenced by the poetry of Federico García Lorca. There is enough ‘green’ imagery in her poems to remind us of Lorca's famous:
«Green, oh how I love you green.» Unmistakably, his ‘green’ transcends mere colour. It refers to a state of mind which is undefinable and irrational. Kylyna's images «zelenyi bil’» [green pain], «zelena krov» [green blood], «zelena literatura» [green literature], «zabuty zelenity» [to forget how to turn green], not unlike similar expressions in Lorca, foreground a certain ineffability associated with this word.
Her long poem «Lament for Antonio Riso Pastor» is also more likely modeled on Lorca's «Lament for Ignacio Sanchez Mejias,» but here she has brought so much of her own background and personality that it is impossible to accuse her of any kind of imitation. Lorca's «Lament» is elegiac, somewhat stylized (especially the first part with an obsessively repeated line «at five o'clock in the afternoon»), and stylistically diverse (the
poet switches from the free-flowing lines in the first two parts to more formal stanzaic arrangement in part three and four). Kylyna's poem, on the other hand, written in long versatile lines is stylistically homogenous; moreover, it exudes the unity and continuity both in terms of tone (direct and personal) and in terms of approach (narrative).
The influences of the Spanish and/or Spanish American poets on Bohdan Boychuk's formative beginnings are less obvious. Arguably, however, Juan Ramón Jiménez, with his almost religious reverence for poetry, left a mark on Boychuk's philosophical and artistic premises. Both poets share the preoccupation with such eternally poetic themes as love, woman, and death. Yet stylistically, this thematic affinity becomes less manifest, especially when one juxtaposes Jiménez's lyricism and serenity with Boychuk's propensity for dramatic effects. Here is how the poet himself describes his involvement in things Spanish:
Я завжди відчував, що існує глибока емоційна співзвучність між українцями й еспанцями. Тому й захоплювався еспанською й особливо еспаномовною, тобто південно-американською, літературами. Можливо, це відчуття було витвором моєї уяви, але цього вистачало, щоб, їдучи на початках шістдесятих років до Мехіко, я був навстіж відкритий для чуда. І чудо сталося. Мехіканські історичні краєвиди, їхня мітологія, їхні перекази й побут натхнули образи, музику і зміст мого циклу Вірші для Мехіко. Точно те саме відноситься до другої частини циклу «Довга подорож», який постав під час моєї подорожі по Еспанії наприкінці шістдесятих років17.
I've always felt that there is a deep emotional affinity between Ukrainians and Spaniards. That is why I've been fascinated with Spanish and especially Spanish-language, i.e. Latin American, literatures. Perhaps, that feeling was the product of my own imagination, but that was enough for me to open myself up for a miracle when I went to Mexico in the early 1960s. And the miracle did happen. Mexican historical sites, their mythology, legends, a people's way of life gave a spur to the images, music and subject matter of my cycle Poems for Mexico. The same can be said about my second part of the cycle «A Long Journey,» which came forth during my trip to Spain at the end of the 1960s.
It is interesting to note that Lavrinenko in his review of Boychuk's Virshi dlia Mekhiko also tried to find parallels between Ukrainian and Mexican mentalities as if justifying before the émigré reading public the poet's thematic choice:
Що ж може бути спільне між Мехіко і Україною? Про якусь подібність між ними говорить чимало українців, які відвідали Мехіко. Може, це поєднання багатої природи з бідною колоніяльною долею? Може, незмірна глибина історії — через конквістадорів і ацтеків аж до майї, як у нас — через вікінгів до трипільців? Може, насиченість цієї історії і землі кров'ю, стражданнями, видержливістю? Може, та вільність, що в найстрашніших іспитах зберігає силу любити і виявити ту любов у ліричному мистецтві, поруч із монументалізмом? (27)
What could Ukraine and Mexico possibly have in common? Many Ukrainians who traveled to Mexico talk about some kind of affinity. Is it perhaps a combination of luxuriant nature with the poverty of colonial fate? Or, is it an immeasurable depth of history — stretching from the conquistadors through Aztecs to Maya, like in our case — from the Vikings to Trypilians? Or, is it perhaps this saturation of history and soil with the blood, suffering, endurance? Or is it a vitality which under most trying circumstances preserves the strength to love and manifests this love in the lyrical arts side by side with the monumentalism?
Notwithstanding Lavrinenko's rather unconvincing argument (ascribing to Virshi dlia Mekhiko a ‘monumentalism’), his insistence on finding the correspondences between Ukrainian and Mexican cultures is quite emblematic; he is simply betraying the symptoms of an émigré condition.
As the poetic excerpts above illustrate, the poets' embrace of Hispanic cultures was intense and tangible. Their love for Spanish language literatures found its expression in poetic explorations of Spanish content as well as in numerous translations they had undertaken. That work was not a call of duty. Rather, it stemmed from their deeply felt need for expansive experiences. Spain (or Spanish America), with its proud people and bullfighting tradition of defying death, offered them an unusual escape from the narrow confines of exile. They have always considered themselves citizens of the Western world who simply happened to come from Ukraine. In fact, it should be pointed out that the poets' gravitation toward Spanish motifs had a definite rebellious ring to it. The ‘Spanish turn’ was yet another challenge to the expections of the émigré community.
The freedom of expression, including an unrestricted selection of themes, has always been at the heart of the New York Group's activity. The emergence of the ‘Spanish School’ phenomenon, unique in Ukrainian literature, has been a byproduct of that artistic freedom, longed for and practiced by all the poets of the group. Clearly, moreover, underlying this ‘Spanish turn’ among the members of the New York Group was, on the one hand, a reluctance on their part to allow themselves to be ensnared in the typically émigré nostalgia, and, on the other hand, an identification with the cosmopolitan mode and mood of the modernist and avant-garde movements, particularly of Spanish and Latin American provenance. No one can accuse these poets of not loving their own country, but they have always felt at home in America, in Mexico, or, for that matter, in Spain as well. The ‘Spanish School’ phenomenon of the New York Group, as I have attempted to delineate it here, happens to be but a guise of the poets' deeply felt and espoused internationalism.
Works Cited
- Agosin, Marjorie. Pablo Neruda. Trans. Lorraine Roses. Boston: Twayne, 1986.
- Bly, Robert. Letter to Patricia Nell Warren. 5 May 1959. Iurii Tarnavs'kyi Papers. Columbia U, New York.
- Boichuk, Bohdan. Letter to Bohdan Rubchak. 1 Apr. 1957. Bohdan Rubchak Papers. Private Collection.
- ------. Memories of Love: The Selected Poems of Bohdan Boychuk. Trans. David Ignatov and Mark Rudman. Riverdale-on-Hudson: Sheep Meadow, 1989.
- ------. Virshi dlia Mekhiko. Munich: V-vo N'iu-Iorks'koi hrupy, 1964.
- ------. Virshi, vybrani i peredostanni. New York: Suchasnist', 1983.
- Cyzevskyj, Dmytro. A History of Ukrainian Literature. Trans. Dolly Ferguson, Doreen Gorsline, and Ulana Petyk. Ed. George S. N. Luckyj. 2nd ed. With An Overview of the Twentieth Century by George S. N. Luckyj. New York: Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1997.
- Dyvnych, Iurii [Iurii Lavrinenko]. «Mekhikans'ko-ukrains'ke vydyvo v poezii Bohdana Boichuka.» Lysty do pryiateliv 13.8-10 (1965): 25-27.
- Grabowicz, George. «New Directions in Ukrainian Poetry in the United States.» The Ukrainian Experience in the United States: A Symposium. Ed. Paul R. Magosci. Cambridge: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, 1979. 156-78.
- Hemingway, Ernest. Death in the Afternoon. New York: Scribner, 1932.
- Kylyna, Patrytsiia [Patricia Nell Warren]. Rozhevi mista. Munich: Suchasnist', 1969.
- Milosz, Czeslav. The History of Polish Literature. 2nd ed. Berkeley: U of California P, 1983.
- Paz, Octavio. The Bow and the Lyre: The Poem, the Poetic Revelation, Poetry and History. Trans. Ruth L. C. Simms. Austin: U of Texas P, 1973.
- Rubchak, Bohdan. Kaminnyi sad. New York: Slovo, 1956.
- ------. «Poeziia antypoezii: Zahal'ni obrysy Iuriia Tarnavs'koho.» Suchasnist' 4(1968): 44-55.
- Tarnavs'kyi, Iurii. Bez Espanii. Munich: Suchasnist', 1969.
- ------. «Bez Espanii chy bez znachennia?» Suchasnist' 12 (1969): 13-29.
- ------. Bez nichoho. Kyiv: Dnipro, 1991.
- ------. Ikh nemaie: Poezii 1970-1999. Kyiv: Rodovid, 1999.
- ------. Popoludni v Pokipsi. New York: V-vo N'iu-Iorks'koi hrupy, 1959.
- ------. Zhyttia v misti. New York: Slovo, 1956.
- Vasyl'kivs'ka, Zhenia. Korotki viddali. New York: Slovo, 1959.
- Vovk, Vira. Chorni akatsii. Munich: Na hori, 1961.
- ------. Elehii. Munich: Ukrains'ke V-vo, 1956.
- ------. Kappa khresta. [Munich]: Suchasnist', 1969.
© Maria G. Rewakowicz
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