In two years I will be forty, which means that I increasingly reflect on time. One wise man once said that time is a country the only exit from which is death, revealing a taste for decadent metaphor making and Thanatotic beauty. But, I tell myself, one cannot find fault with him, as I watch how things go from bad to worse, everything gets sucked into depression, teeth grind, funerals calling for my presence become more frequent, unmotivated alcoholic interludes in a parallel reality, and, finally, fear as such.
Twenty years ago I loved to think about the future, I even hoped it would come more quickly. And there was only one road there, a very dubious one, in the Moody Blues’ then contraband meta-image, a stairway to heaven, and that was poetry. Twenty years ago I wrote samizdat verse in all kinds of notebooks and hid them from the whole world in the most intimate niches. I had no illusions about being able to publish them.
Twenty years ago I studied publishing in Lviv and I knew better than anyone else that under our Ukrainian Soviet circumstances a caravan of camels would get trough the eye of the needle before any “dubious” manuscript would see the light of day after the shredder of editors, reviewers, Writers’ Union, critics, censors, the Party, police, and everything else. What was worse, I had no talent for drawing and only a very vague idea of the exact and natural sciences, condemning me to the humanities, where I had to pass examinations on Marxist-Leninist aesthetics, theory of literature, Ukrainian, Russian, and Foreign Literature, each of which disciplines demanded the “only correct creative method,” that of Socialist Realism. What could be used to counterbalance this officially supported and enforced approach? Samizdat tissue paper reprints of the New Testament, Antonych’s Black Book? Listening to Genesis or drinking cheap fortified wine? Breathing and making love yoga style?
It was precisely there, in the dirty, sacral atmosphere of student dormitories with scratchy records and glimmering candles, that I met my first readers, or rather listeners. I recited my verse in a voice trembling with suppressed emotion. It was fortunate that my verse had no chance then. I was fortunate that I did not take them to an editor.
In the next twenty years many things came together, shook, things fell into place, got lost, and were created. The temptations arising were legion, and unfortunately (or fortunately?), I could not resist them all. Sometimes I was saved by a mask, sometimes by outward circumstances, and sometimes by my guardian angel. Most often, nothing saved me, and I learned no lessons because it seems there were none to learn.
I do not know the answers to many of the main questions. They say this is a sign of what they call experience. The more one gains the more questions are unanswered. Perhaps this is the main reason for my “irresponsibility” — I found it much easier to discuss the responsibility assumed by, say, Brecht or Tychyna, the temptation of some political idea, Left, Right, whatever, the temptation of being apolitical, or, say, “post-socialist realism” as the main trend in latter-day Ukrainian literature. In a word, all that garbage called “creative arsenal,” including “standard-bearers” who stubbornly refuse to discard their moth-eaten banners and mottoes of eternal victory.
Getting back to myself and my reflecting on time, I will be 40 soon. Time has done me a big favor, because I realized that the best poetry is read between the lines and the best prose is corrected and crossed out. Which means that writing becomes increasingly difficult and almost impossible in general. Yet I do not lose hope that one day I will find some sign, hint, movement, or permission. It is like being held in suspense, something I would call the only correct creative method.






