I met Ukrainian poet Olha Shvets just over a year ago, at a Poetry School/Newcastle University poetry MA summer school in London, when we found ourselves sitting opposite each other in a crowded and very noisy Pizza Express. It was hard to hear her replies to my many questions, but I came away with the hope that she had agreed to do an email interview with me. Because of 'complications' in her life it has taken her a year to come up with these remarkable and often very moving answers:    

Please tell me about your life in Ukraine before the Russian invasion.

It is morning. I wake up in my country, in my city, in my own bed, in a room with a view of the river. The river is so wide that the opposite bank is barely visible; yet, when I was a child, my dad told me

that what I saw was an island, and that there was just as much water again beyond it before reaching the far shore. If I press my forehead against the windowpane, I can see a bridge to the left connecting Kherson with its satellite town, Oleshky. That is where my friends live, and we often cross the bridge by bus to visit one another. I recently posted an announcement for a poetry festival; the application deadline is in two weeks. When spring arrives, the poets will visit Kherson for the annual event I established long ago—since then it earned my city the nickname 'Poetry Capital of Ukraine'. Very soon — in March —

we will be performing with our poems, staging poetry performances, composing impromptu verses, and organising a literary tour around the region. I have just recorded a new song about longing for the sea, but come summer, I will see it in person, the Black Sea — blue, vast, and alive, changing every day. My friends and I will take the ‘Om-104’ boat to our favourite island, pitch our tents, and feed watermelon rinds by hand to the wild boars — striped little piglets, almost tame, in the Jarylhach Island reserve.

What happened to you after Russia invaded?

Spring never came. Instead, explosions banged, at dawn. The airport was being bombed. Tanks were advancing from across the river. Columns of smoke were visible across the horizon. Soon, social media began to report that the battle for Kherson was raging on the bridge. That tanks had broken through and surrounded the city. That those leaving were being shot at. That we would stand to the end. That Bucha and Mariupol were in a truly terrifying trap, which meant we were lucky. My head was ringing from the constant volleys of various weapons; I learnt to identify them by ear – MLRS (multiple rocket launchers), drone, tank, cruise missile, bomber … its sound was the most disgusting, low and tinny, the cat used to hide under the bed from it.

We managed to leave, crossed Europe, waited for our visas, and adapted to a foreign country —though 'adapted' might be too strong a word. We got past the initial cultural shock and learned how to live along with nostalgia, call the council, understand bills, fill in endless forms and pick up on some of the subtle, unspoken nuances when talking to locals. We still fall into traps due to lack of experience — believing someone genuinely wants us to visit them, or starting to share the real details of our situation as a response to a casual “how are you?”. My children and I are still feeling the repercussions of those 16 harrowing months spent in an uninhabitable hostel, used as emergency accommodation, alongside a motley mix of tenants and an unscrupulous landlord. On the bright side, we’re learning, working, and not giving up.

At the same time, our hearts are filled with immense gratitude toward people; we never expected to receive such a wealth of help and support in the UK. We had originally planned to handle everything on our own, but the reality of displacement proved far more challenging than we had imagined. Along our path of adaptation, we encountered so many kind and helpful people. I could talk endlessly about Charlotte and Willie with their ‘Trojan Women’ project — drama sessions for refugees framed within the context of Euripides’ play. About Elona and her physical theatre, where she guided us through a journey across Dante’s worlds. And about Tom, who led art classes at the Ukrainian Welcome Centre. Sadly, he was taken from us by a terminal illness, but the gratitude of Ukrainians to whom his volunteering brought hope — and helped find themselves again — is beyond limits.

How important is poetry in your life?

Poetry has literally been a lifeline for me. In childhood, it saved me from boredom; in my teens, from loneliness; in my youth, from relationship disappointments; and during the war, it kept me from losing my mind. I love writing my own poetry just as much as reading the works of others. I am deeply impressed by contemporary Ukrainian poetry; new voices are presenting a fresh image of women: she is no longer a victim but a symbol of resilience and the capacity for recovery, where even small steps manifest life and endurance. Contemporary English-language poetry also fascinates me. I love its freedom, diversity, use of alliteration, strings of verbs, and the holographic quality of its imagery. It feels as though, every time I immerse myself in a hundred new poems, I become more than me. I experience feelings and emotions alongside the authors, and I never cease to marvel at how different — yet how alike — we all are. It is quite a paradox.

 

 

On the final day of our MA summer school in London, we were invited to visit a joint exhibition at the Royal Academy of the work of post-war German artist Anselm Kiefer and that of Vincent Van Gogh, who he greatly admired. Sunflowers play a big part in Kiefer's work, and in Van Gogh's. Given that the sunflower is the national flower of Ukraine, I wondered what your perspective on this was? 

When I saw the sea of sunflowers in the hall, it felt as though I had been transported to Ukraine. I remember once — back before the war — stopping at the edge of a sunflower field on our way to the seaside and getting out of the car. We simply stood there gazing at the field, and there was something incredibly vast, profound, and poignantly alive about it. Seeing sunflowers depicted as black and drooping in paintings resonates even more deeply with the current situation in Ukraine; after all, the war has already lasted longer than World War II, and there is no telling how many more brutal deaths and irreversible acts of destruction lie ahead. Yet, I am certain we will hold firm and prevent the "rashist" plague from spreading further west. But victory comes at a terrible price. Our finest people are losing their lives, the children of war are growing up in anxiety, and generations to come will bear the weight of this collective trauma.

What are your hopes for the future?

I have already spoken about Ukraine’s victory, this is the hope of the highest priority. Now, on other hopes. I am starting to teach a short course at the London Poetry School, and I hope to do more towards teaching poetry. I am continuing to draw, while also occasionally considering a collection of my poems with my illustrations to it. This spring, I finished the libretto for an opera about the war and the fates of Ukrainian men and women; the story is set during the defence of Azovstal. I am working on this project with the renowned Ukrainian composer Alla Sirenko, who contributes many interesting ideas and suggestions. I hope the opera will soon premiere in London and tour the UK next year. We must remain aware that the war is ongoing and remember the heroism of our defenders. I want to show how life goes on despite the hardships, and how love lives in people's hearts alongside the pain.

 

 

TOP PHOTOGRAPH: ALEXEJ HEIBEL

OTHER PHOTOGRAPHS AND ILLUSTRATIONS: OLHA SHVETS