Nucleus: A Poet’s Lyrical Journey from Ukraine to Canada

Nucleus: A Poet’s Lyrical Journey from Ukraine to Canada

by Svetlana Ischenko

$18.95

  • January 2024
  • print ISBN: 978-1-55380-707-0
  • ebook ISBN: 978-1-55380-708-7
  • PDF ISBN: 978-1-55380-709-4
  • 6″ x 9″ Trade paper, 100 pages
  • Poetry

Ischenko tackles the creative tension between her identity as a Ukrainian poet with deeply Ukrainian sensibilities and an immigrant poet enthused by her adopted country.

2nd Place: Sunshine Coast Writers and Editors Society award in the poetry category
Named by CBC Books as one of 37 poetry collections to watch for in spring 2024.

Readers see through a Ukrainian immigrant’s eyes as she looks back at the land and traditions of her original country. This collection illuminates Ischenko’s poetic transformation from a heroic crown of sonnets to freer, lyrical pieces, all within the dynamic of Ukrainian and Canadian subject matter and sensibilities. A powerful collection, made even more profound in light of recent events in Ukraine.

Nucleus includes a fascinating introductory essay about Ischenko’s experience of identity and translation, which explores her translation of self in a new country. By slowly beginning to write in Canada in English, she achieves a sense of centredness beyond language and culture — a nucleus of identity.

“The heroine in Nucleus views the world through the lenses of two homelands, one native and one acquired, and this gives her poetry depth, subtlety, and a polyphonic quality, turning it into a bird of lyrical utterance winging over an ocean between beloved shores and releasing its coded feathers across the waves.”— Teodozia Zarivna, Ukrainian poet, novelist, playwright, and journalist, author of the novels Willow Board and Hunting for Birds of the Sky.

“Nucleus is not only a showcasing of a transcendent poetic gift, but also a lyrical testimony to what it means to be Ukrainian and Canadian.” — Angela Girard, North Vancouver City Councillor

Praise for Ischenko’s previous work:

“It is completely Ukrainian, yet Svetlana Ischenko’s poetry is at the same time a global rather than a regional phenomenon. This is a truly talented poet who on earth can hear heavenly chorales and in heaven hear earthly rhythms and counterpoints of time.”
— Dmytro Kremin, Shevchenko National Prize Poet, from his Introduction to Svetlana Ischenko’s СІ-ДІЄЗ (B-SHARP)

“The folkloric component in Svetlana Ischenko’s poetry along with its intellectual energy and awareness of the realities of contemporary life in Ukraine and beyond — this allows her work to be a document of national culture and an artifact of world art.”
— Vladlena Russova, V.O. Sukhomlynsky Mykolaiv State University Bulletin