POEMS BY LYUDMYLA DIADCHENKO, IN UKRAINIAN AND ENGLISH⠀•⠀TRANSLATED BY PADMA THORNLYRE

No Reply is pleased to publish the first edition of Magnetic Storms, twenty-three poems by Lyudmyla Diadchenko.

For years Diadchenko has been among the foremost Ukrainian writers and an advocate for the Ukrainian language on the world stage. While her manuscript was dazzling, with No Reply Press' publishing agenda already full, we did not plan to publish Magnetic Storms in 2023. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has changed that.  Like many watching events unfold, we are left wondering, "What can we do?" Any individual action can feel vanishingly insignificant, like tossing a pebble into a river to stop its flow. Eventually, however, the pebbles can pile up. So, we must do something, however small. The role of a publisher in the internet age is not to circulate information, but to help curate what circulates and shape "the canon." While Russian literature is widely celebrated in the West, and deservingly so, Ukrainian literature has often been overlooked, or worse, subsumed as Russian literature. For those who have never experienced the power of the Ukrainian language, watch this performance from when the great Ukrainian band DakhaBrakha visited us in the Pacific Northwest several years ago. The vitality that DakhaBrakha brings to music, Lyudmyla Diadchenko brings to written poetry.

The title, Magnetic Storms, captures the energy of these poems. They are riveting, vivid, electric – even in translation. They have been masterfully translated by American poet Padma Thornlyre, with the assistance of Ukrainian writers Viacheslav Stelmakh and Dmitrou Teplouhov. The translation has been handled delicately, for those unable to read the original. We are sure that all readers will appreciate the power of Diadchenko's poetry.