Perfectly visible. Poetry Yulia Khomenkotranslated

Pavel KRYUCHKOV

Deputy editor-in-chief, head of the poetry department of the New World magazine.

For several days in a row I haven’t parted with this author’s favorite volume: I read and re-read it endlessly. The collection is called “The Splash of the Escaped Trout.”

Three musical words are from a poem included in the long-standing book “Balloons” (2003), published in the legendary series of the poetry magazine “Arion”.

It turns out that my acquaintance with the art of Yuli Khomenko once began with her, but the real meeting lasted for almost a quarter of a century.

As I read, I kept remembering Pasternak’s pre-war words: “...Poetry always remains that glorified height above all Alps, which lies in the grass, under your feet, so that you only have to bend down to see it and pick it up from the ground; <…> it will forever remain an organic function of the happiness of a person, overflowing with the blissful gift of rational speech...” (1935). It’s interesting that since the time of “Balloons,” the poet, singer and teacher Yuliy Khomenko has been working as a professor of vocals at the Vienna University of Music and Arts, just not far from the local Alps. He is not an emigrant at all, although he lives and works on the Austrian side most of the year. Floating above him...