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This is a free event; however space is limited —please use link to RSVP! "These poems of witness may be wrought from a horrendous war, composed in times of turmoil and void of leisure, yet the Ukrainian poet Halyna Kruk’s mastery is evident on every page …Sometimes tender, offering surprising moments of stubbornly persisting beauty, sometimes bitter and hard, Kruk’s poems are also a reminder for the rest of the world to ‘take us in, like unpleasant medicine’." —Judges’ Citation, Griffin Poetry Prize
How does a poet in the midst of a tragic war write about both her country’s and her own personal loss and trauma? Is there really any other choice? Acclaimed Ukrainian poet, translator, and scholar Halyna Kruk joins us for a rare Portland appearance to read from her latest collections of poems (including the award-winning Crash Course in Molotov Cocktails and Lost in Living) in English and Ukrainian.
She will also be joined in conversation with former Oregon Poet Laureate Kim Stafford for a discussion on poetry as a prism for navigating the loss and grief, both personal and collective, that war brings and what roads might be salvaged to return us to our humanness.
To read some of Halyna Kruk’s work in translation: https://exchanges.uiowa.edu/issues/endurance/six-poems-by-halyna-kruk/
About the Speakers
Halyna Kruk was born in Lviv, Ukraine. She is the author of five books of poetry (including A Crash Course in Molotov Cocktails, which was recently shortlisted for the prestigious Griffin Poetry Prize and Lost in Living, published by Oregon's Lost Horse Press), as well as a collection of short stories and four children’s books. She has garnered multiple awards for her writing, including the Bohdan Ihor Antonych Prize, the Polish Gaude Polonia Fellowship, the Bookforum Best Book Award, and the Kovaliv Foundation Prize for Prose. She has served as vice president of the PEN Ukraine, holds a Ph.D in Ukrainian literature, and is professor of European and Ukrainian baroque literature at the Ivan Franko National University in Lviv.
Kim Stafford is Emeritus Professor at Lewis and Clark College in Oregon and the founder of the Northwest Writing Institute. He writes, teaches, and travels to raise the human spirit through poetry. He has taught writing in dozens of schools and community centers, and in Scotland, Italy, Mexico, and Bhutan. In 2018 he was named Oregon’s 9th Poet Laureate for a two-year term. Kim has published a dozen books of poetry and prose, including A Proclamation for Peace, recently translated into 50 languages; As the Sky Begins to Change (Red Hen Press, 2024); and, in 2022, Sunflower Seeds: Poems for Ukraine, which explores testimony, lament, solace, and inquiry into the causes of war and a search for remedies.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
1207 SW Broadway Suite 300, Portland, OR, United States, Oregon 97205
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