Love Letters to Ukraine from Uyava by Kalpna Singh-Chitnis Review by Nicole Yurcaba

Love Letters to Ukraine from Uyava by Kalpna Singh-Chitnis

Review by Nicole Yurcaba

Publisher: River Paw Press

Publication Date: March 11, 2023

ISBN: 978-1736687147

Pages: 110

When Empathy Bridges Divides: A Review of Kalpna Singh-Chitnis’s Love Letters to Ukraine from Uyava, with Ukrainian translations by Volodymyr Tymchuk

In Love Letters to Ukraine from Uyava by Kalpna Singh-Chitnis, with Ukrainian translations by Volodymyr Tymchuk, heartache, longing, and confusion merge in poems of witness and love. The poems are a beautiful embroidery of hope and prayer, passion and unity. Romantic in tone and imagery, at their core, however, is an even stronger desire—that Ukraine and her people might finally have a peaceful existence, one free of Russia’s historical and current oppression and aggression.

While individual poems capture both the speaker’s passion as well as the Ukrainian people’s fortitude, what makes Love Letters to Ukraine from Uyava even more memorable is the way the poems are written in English by Kalpna Singh-Chitnis and translated into Ukrainian by Volodymyr Tymchuk. This experimental translation method is, in many ways, groundbreaking, since the typical practice since the war has been to translate Ukrainian literature into English. With their endeavor, Singh-Chitnis and Tymchuk join a small cohort of poets and translators like Christopher Merrill and Nina Murray, whose poetic translation collaboration, On the Road to Lviv, was published by Arrowsmith Press, released in 2023. Such practices allow Anglophone writers to expand their audiences and bring a new swath of socially and globally conscious to these audiences. The project also opens new avenues for poets in regards to collaboration—a process in which few presses focus.

“Your Return” is a passionate confession that blends romantic love’s first blossoms with war’s consuming turmoil. The speaker defines their beloved as “the gift of war.” The speaker also relies on images traditionally associated with Ukrainian culture, specifically the red viburnum (a deciduous shrub known as kalyna in Ukraine). At times, the speaker is subtly erotic: “Your mighty wings want to take me / to another height. I am not scared of heights.” A fearlessness permeates the poem, but juxtaposing the speaker’s fearlessness is the awareness that war is ever present: “But yet again, in a hurry! / You have to go. I know.” Thus, the poem adeptly captures the swiftness at which war approaches and consumes. The poem possesses resonance with refugee accounts of leaving Ukraine during the war’s initial days, when over a million refugees fled Ukraine.

“The Healer” echoes the passionate tone in “Your Return.” Again, readers encounter an impassioned, pleading speaker. The poem opens with the feverish lines “Don’t leave! / Stay. Speak to me.” Part plea, part command, these lines possess a tonal duality, but as the opening lines segue into the stanza’s remainder, the tone cools:

                    Or the night—
                    won’t progress.
                    The dawn won’t break.
                    The moon, the stars,
                    and the night sky
                    wait in anticipation of
                    what you have to say.

For readers familiar with Ukrainian poetry, and particularly the poetry of Ukraine’s national poet Taras Shevchenko, the imagery in these lines allude to Shevchenko’s most remembered poem, “The Mighty Dnipro.” This similarity of tone and imagery to Shevchenko’s poetry is a unique thread in the poem. As the poem concludes, the speaker once again incorporates images of a wind that is “whispering in the canyon” and a “night bird singing to the moon.” Nature plays a significant role in traditional and contemporary Ukrainian poetry, and the speaker’s reliance on natural elements builds a subtle connection to that tradition.

“War and Flowers” is a heartfelt, and heartbreaking, poem that draws on the collective grief Ukrainians endure both in the homeland and abroad as more and more of their people are lost in Russia’s brutal invasion. In this poem, flowers are personified and portrayed as not going “to the weddings and birthdays as planned.” The flowers transform into quiet protestors as they “refused to go / to the palaces of dictators and monarchs.” Instead, the flowers “went to honor the coffins of the soldiers / and unmarked graves of the brave and innocents.” Then, the flowers metamorphosize as they “traveled to the borders to welcome refugees” and become prayer-warriors who “sat on the shrines to pray for peace.” The flowers’ personification is an important technique in the poem, especially when one considers the long-standing symbolism associated with flowers, particularly in Ukrainian embroidery. For example, in traditional Ukrainian embroidery, floral patterns are associated with Southern and Eastern Ukraine. Flowers, leaves, and branches can symbolize purity, familial prosperity, renewal, and infinity. However, it is the poem’s final line that truly captures the essence of the poem, of the collection—and most significantly, of the Ukrainian people: “Everyone takes a new role in a war.” One can, and should, consider the poem in the context of personal narratives from those who volunteered in some capacity during the war’s initial days. Ukrainian citizens who remained in Ukraine each found a role either serving in the armed forces, enlisting in the territorial defense units, or by volunteering in other necessary positions.

These new roles embraced by those involved directly and tangentially with the war in Ukraine are also a key theme in “Children of the Earth.” Again, the speaker returns to the significance of nature in Ukraine. However, rather than focusing on the role of people, the speaker focuses on the roles of animals and birds and how the war has disrupted those roles. The speaker asks, “Where did the animals go for refuge? / Where did the birds go to nest?” At first, these questions are rather general, but as the speaker continues, their questions pertain to specific creatures: “Would the pelicans return in Spring to their water, / to see the cetaceans dead on their seabeds?” The speaker alludes to the ecocide occurring because of the war in Ukraine, a war which, according to Ukrainian marine biologists, has claimed the lives of at least 50,000 dolphins. One of the most powerful questions the speaker poses occurs as the poem concludes, as they reflect on how Russian soldiers “shot dogs on the streets and ate them on the eastern front…  Would that be considered a war crime?” Thus, the poem dares to explore the natural realms and their inhabitants which suffer during wartime—a territory many of the poems written about the war do not consider, since they focus primarily on the human experience.

The collection includes a series of poems titled “Coming Home,” but it is “Coming Home II” which considers the long-term mental health effects the war incurs on the Ukrainian population and, more specifically, Ukrainian Armed Forces veterans. The speaker describes the unnamed “you” as carrying “the burdens of your grieving nation.” The speaker displays great empathy: “And I carry you in my heart / for you to unburden yourself.” The speaker also describes how they and the person to whom they are speaking have become “an ocean for each other” and “like a river / to return to our forever home.” What is most emotionally powerful and overwhelming about this poem is, ultimately, the speaker’s commentary on having compassion and humanity in a world where both seem to be sorely lacking.

“A Year of the War” is another poem which testifies to the emotional and mental toll the war has taken on individuals who are both directly and indirectly involved in it. The speaker observes, “We have lost the concept of time. / We have adjusted our body clocks / and turned around season in our minds / to live—not merely survive.” These lines are a testament to the millions of Ukrainians who, whether in the homeland or abroad, have not only kept the war at their thoughts’ forefront, but also managed to begin living again. The speaker alludes to Ukrainian ingenuity and fortitude even more as they reflect, “We have manifested the sun at night— / without light. We have plucked the moon in a panic / to cover it in shelter, from the eyes of sky pirates.” The speaker also acknowledges that “Doubts and uncertainties are in the air,” but they attest to the collective “willingness / to make things work.” These lines speak directly to the Ukrainian optimism which has fueled them since the 2022 invasion, despite the seemingly insufferable hardships they have been forced to bear.

Adding even more emotional weight to these translations and the overall collection is the fact that Volodymyr Tymchuk currently serves as a lieutenant colonel in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Born in Zakarpattia in 1979, Tymchuk has enjoyed a long teaching and literary career as a poet, translator, and writer, and has published over a dozen collections of prose and verse. Tymchuk joins Ukrainian writers like Artem Chekh, Artem Chapeye, Stanislav Aseyev, and others who are not only defending their homeland, but also writing and recording their experiences and establishing a new era in Ukrainian literature.          

Love Letters to Ukraine from Uyava is a new kind of love letter—one to language, one to humanity, and one to motherland. This collection’s poems bridge the civilian-soldier gap, and also remind readers that even though war might occur in distant lands where some may have no connection, it does not mean the pain and suffering taking place is any less unbearable. Most of all, these poems encourage readers to tap into the deepest wells of their empathy and humanity because the smallest drop and the tiniest spark can create the greatest momentum for change.

Kalpna Singh-Chitnis is an Indian-American poet, filmmaker, and author. Her bilingual collection Love Letters to Ukraine from Uyava was a finalist in the 2023 International Book Awards. Singh-Chitnis is also an advocacy member at the United Nations Association of the USA. More of her work can be found at her website:  www.kalpnasinghchitnis.com

Volodymyr Tymchuk, born in 1979 in Zakarpattia, Ukraine, currently serves as a lieutenant colonel in the Ukrainian Armed Forces. He is also a poet, writer, and translator. More of his work can be found at his website: https://volodymyrtymchuk.wordpress.com/. 

Nicole Yurcaba (Нікола Юрцаба) is a Ukrainian American of Hutsul/Lemko origin. Her poems and reviews have appeared in Appalachian Heritage, Atlanta Review, Seneca Review, New Eastern Europe, and Ukraine’s Euromaidan Press, Lit Gazeta, Chytomo, Bukvoid, and The New Voice of Ukraine. Nicole holds an MFA in Writing from Lindenwood University, teaches poetry workshops for Southern New Hampshire University, and is the Humanities Coordinator at Blue Ridge Community and Technical College. She also serves as a guest book reviewer for Sage Cigarettes, Tupelo Quarterly, Colorado Review, and Southern Review of Books.

22 May 2024