Shevchenko Society hosts literary evening of Yuriy Tarnawsky

by Dr. Orest Popovych

NEW YORK - It is no surprise that a co-founder of the New York Group of Ukrainian writers would attract an enthusiastic audience to one of his literary nights in this city. On January 25 they came to the Shevchenko Scientific Society (NTSh) building to hear the latest works by Yuriy Tarnawsky, the well-known poet, prosaist, playwright and translator.

An expert introduction by Vasyl Makhno, himself a prominent poet, provided the background for this presentation. "I would compare the works of Mr. Tarnawsky to a Mexican cactus, which blooms with exotic flowers, while its fruit possesses a mild taste of alcohol," intoned the fellow poet. He then harked back to the late 1950s, recalling the contributions of the "rebellious" New York Group, which has generated many new artistic ideas in Ukrainian literature, thus bringing it into line with the modern trends in world literature.

Prof. Makhno referred to Dr. Tarnawsky as a particularly ardent champion of radical change in Ukrainian émigré literature, one who drew upon the cross-currents of the prevailing artistic movements of the second half of the 20th century, such as the beat culture of North America, the poetry of Latin America as well as the European forays into existentialism as represented by Sartre and Camus. He went on to note that early on, with the collection "Life in the City," which came out in 1956, Mr. Tarnawsky also made his mark as an urban poet.

To date Mr. Tarnawsky has published 19 collections of poetry, 10 books of prose and seven plays. His writings are bilingual. In the case of poetry, he usually composes the first version in Ukrainian, followed by its English variant (he does not refer to them as "translations"). In the case of prose, that order is reversed.

As part of the evening's program, Mr. Tarnawsky offered excerpts from the second volume of his collected poems titled "Yikh Nemaye" (They Don't Exist), and from his book of prose "Ne Znayu" (I Don't Know), both published in Kyiv by Rodovid in 1999 and 2000, respectively.

Recently, one of his collections was published in Polish in a translation by Tadeusz Karabowicz titled "Oto Jak Zdrowiej?" (Lublin: Prymat, 2002). Selections from the Polish edition were read by the poet's wife, Karina.

Subsequently Dr. Tarnawsky read from his English translation of poetry by the Ukrainian poet Volodymyr Tsybulko from the collection "Angels in a Pyramid."

The program concluded with the short story "Lenin's Brain," a humorous phantasy from Mr. Tarnawsky's collection "Short Tails," originally written in English and read by the author in its Ukrainian variant. ("Lenin's Brain" appeared in the November 2002 issue of the literary journal Krytyka, which is published in Kyiv.)

Mr. Tarnawsky is a member of the Fiction Collective society of American avant-garde writers and of the Writers' Union of Ukraine. He holds a Ph.D. in linguistics and is a full member of the Shevchenko Scientific Society.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, February 23, 2003, No. 8, Vol. LXXI

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