The New Slaves
by Vania Valkova
Translated from the Bulgarian by Elitza Kotzeva
The new slaves are abundantly obedient
Socialize politely in slow-tedious style, yet
Always have their nails exquisitely done
and well charged robots full of smiles to don.
Apologia for a death threat sent at 4 in the morning to another Russian Jewish poet
by Vladislav Davidzon
If broken, a law of mesira
is a mortifying plume
writing denunciations is no art
high incidence of illiterates
involved in
regressed resplendence
bony spinster's joints
"Expandable" and other poems
by Diana Manole
What else do you want? The crisis centres’ phone numbers already blink
on oversized billboards
at both ends of the bridges
above six-lane highways crossing cities to prevent traffic delays
during rush hours.
"Crime of a Lily" and other poems
by Stephan Roll
Translated from the Romanian by Henry Finch
In the moonlight your eye lacks a pupil
But flowers you lead by hand
Inverse praying to the consecrated saints
Like the taste of the fountain’s black stones
"Undoing" and other poems
by Zita Izsó
Translated from the Hungarian by Timea Balogh
We lay with our faces in the sand.
For a long time, we dare not believe this is the shore.
We don’t know how many of us made it,
how many we lost.
"You must find the answers to your life”: An Interview with Lyubko Deresh
Interviewed by Justina Dobush
Literature is an experience of beauty and love, the beauty of being, and the love of being. Literature is actually a small packed being that lives inside of us. This is why we respect Homer, Shakespeare, Dante.
The View from Tsetsyno
by Maxym Dupeshko
Translated from the Ukrainian by Zenia Tompkins
I don’t know what lures me here. I come to this mountain a few times a year as to a place of spiritual pilgrimage, foraging here for air suffused with oxygen atoms and the scent of conifers. Though that’s most likely only part of it. It’s not just the taste of the air, not just the sweet headiness of the beech and fir trees, not just the pleasant height with its distant Bukovynian skyline, but also… But also something impalpable that unfurls through this space and pulsates all around.
Maria’s Life, or Mario
by Yuri Andrukhovych
Translated from the Ukrainian by Vitaly Chernetsky
In all the years given to him Mario Pongratz committed only one murder. He would only have to face the responsibility for it at the heavenly court, and the details of that closed trial remain unknown—for understandable reasons. As for the earthly court, it was very open indeed and sentenced Mario Pongratz under a completely different article. However, this is not at all the beginning, but rather one of the endings of this story, and it looms somewhere far ahead, sometime in the 1890s.
Almost Like in the Story
by Artem Cheh
Translated from the Ukrainian by Olena Jennings and Oksana Lutsyshyna
“Val, this louse, is sitting at the third line of defense, calling his wife and rambling on about how he was picking the guts of his friends off the ground.” My commander was telling the story about one of the soldiers with despair in his voice. He nearly shouted.
Feel Unique
By Artem Chapeye
Translated from the Ukrainian by Zenia Tompkins
He even felt jealous of that old lady. The crowd splashed out of the metro into the Akademmistechko Station. People flooded the stairs from wall to wall. And that old woman was walking in the opposite direction with a vengeful look and squabbling loudly. “This is a mob! People can’t even get through!” She genuinely viewed herself as separate, as different. As if she wasn’t a part of the mob. He felt jealous of that lady because it just didn’t work for him like that anymore.
A Curious Story of Stefan Lange
by Lyubko Deresh
Translated from the Ukrainian by Patrick John Corness
So, von Liebig was a courteous person. In his lectures, however contentious the issue under debate might be, he always acted with decorum when speaking of his critics, noting their strengths and praising their achievements. This completely won over Stefan Lange, who was at the time a third year student in the languages department of the University of Vienna.
Under the Sign of Peace
by Victoria Amelina
Translated from the Ukrainian by Zenia Tompkins
After Tarik was gone, and the Egyptian government had yielded its positions, I closed my laptop and walked up to the window. It was spring, and it wasn’t yellow leaves, as on that distant day in the fall of 1989, but now the white petals of an old pear tree that swirled in the yard between the hanging linens and the maples, abloom with the green heartlings of newborn life.
the road beyond the horizon
by Iryna Tsilyk
Translated from the Ukrainian by Vitaly Chernetsky
feat. the photography of Ruslan Hruschak
Be as it may,
every year begins and ends with
Christmas.
You will be standing somewhere on the porch
of your multi-apartment homeland
looking out for the first star
above the dark eyes of nervous cars
"I am glad that artificial intelligence is still not able to take creative work from us": An Interview with Andriy Tuzhykov
Interviewed by Oksana Chmil
Sometimes genres intertwine, as in literary reportage, but they are entirely different tools that are equally necessary. It is like asking what is more important: eating healthy food or doing morning exercises. Both are important.
"These days, I feel like America has given me a second breath": An Interview with Vasyl Makhno
Interviewed by Kate Tsurkan
Actually, I lucked out with where I settled down in America. Sometimes I think to myself, what if I had chosen Chicago, Philadelphia, or some other provincial New Jersey town—what then?
Selected Poems
by Ondřej Hanus
Translated from the Czech by Nathan Fields
the first verse decides
through Holešovice underpass back into Mother
airtight sleep of narration spawns flaring micronarratives
a thing is the ekphrasis of essence and essence is the ekphrasis of God
that is the last use of matter
Selected Poems
by Petr Hruška
Translated from the Czech by Jonathan Bolton
That’s him.
It happens.
Selective mutism,
as learned people call it,
the sudden loss of speech.