Still City by Oksana Maksymchuk

Still City by Oksana Maksymchuk – Diary of an Invasion – is the debut poetry collection of a Ukrainian poet. She wrote and published in Ukrainian, but after the full-scale invasion she started writing in English. I was at the launch of the book in Liverpool, one stop in her tour in UK. The collection was named as one of Financial Times’s Best Summer Poetry Books of 2024.

I am not keen on poetry, but I enjoyed this collection of poems. I read a few at a time. As Oksana said, one needs to read poetry slowly. I will share one of the poems below. It was one of the poems she read at the event and one that was very vivid for me. This poem reminded me of Mariupol and, in answering my question on it, she mentioned Mariupol. I think sharing this poem is the best way to review the book. Please read it and reflect on it.

Still Life of a Person with a Pug

She was walking her pug
down the street in a town
where she spent her childhood
and teenage years

still in her winter coat
even though it was getting
warmer, and the buds on the poplars
grew engorged

Something bit her
in the back, and she fell
and lay there
on the sidewalk

The next day, a neighbour brought out
a sheet with tiny roses
for that which was once her body
a matching pillowcase for the pug’s

A passer-by took a photograph
and posted it on Telegram
causing an avalanche of
angry emojis

Still City by Oksana Maksymchuk

Details about the picture: the mug is from Lviv
My rating: 5/5 Stars
Would I recommend it: yes
Published by: Carcanet Press
Year it was published: 2024
Format: Paperback
Genre(s): Poetry
Pages: 128

About the author: Oksana Maksymchuk is a Ukrainian-American poet, scholar, and literary translator. Her English debut poetry collection Still City: Diary of an Invasion is forthcoming in 2024. She previously wrote and published poetry in Ukrainian.
Oksana is a co-recipient of a National Endowments for the Arts Translation Fellowship, Scaglione Prize for Literary Translation from the Modern Language Association of America, Peterson Translated Book Award, and American Association for Ukrainian Studies Translation Prize. Her work has been featured on BBC Radio 3, CBC Radio, The Times, The Guardian, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and TEDx.
Website & Social Media Links: –