Tag Archives: Writing

TATI’s & TONY’s DEAD POET TOUR // A World Worth Living In by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

One who claims that he knows about it
Tells me the earth is a vale of sin;
But I and the bees, and the birds we doubt it,
And think it a world worth living in.

Whatever you want, if you wish for it long,
With constant yearning and ceaseless desire,
If your wish soars upward on wings so strong
That they never grow languid, never tire,
Why, over the storm cloud and out of the dark
It will come flying some day to you,
As the dove with the olive branch flew to the ark,
And the wish you’ve been dreaming,
it will come true.

by ELLA WHEELER WILCOX (1855–1919)
Public Domain Poetry

WORDS LIVE ON // Vasyl Doroshenko

Down through the ages, Russia has tried to kill the Ukrainian identity. They have done everything to present Ukraine as the rural outskirts of the ‘great, educated and advanced’ Russian empire. But the ones who proclaimed themselves enlighteners were merely butchers, murderers. They did everything they could to erase Ukrainian culture, traditions, and even the Ukrainian language itself.

And they are still doing this, even now, literally. During the last eleven years of war, Russia has killed hundreds of people of literature. Writers, poets, translators, editors, publishers and librarians. Ukrainian men and women. As you read these words, others are left to disappear in an unread draft forever.

There is a project called ‘Nedopysani‘ (‘Unfinished‘ in English). It’s a memorial site for people of literature who will never be able to put that final dot in their notebook, who will never be able to take into their hands their first published book. And so, this is our hard and painful mission. This is what we must do for them. It is inevitable.

Today, we present the next instalment of our translation series, ‘Words Live On’. We have done our best, and we hope that it will speak to our Dear Readers in a way that cold, clinical war statistics cannot.

Glory to Ukraine! To our heroes — glory!

A city, where from an abandoned railway track,
And the ruins of a theatre long hushed, grass grows.
’cause there the basements contain more than the roofs.
Maybe, from there something whispers to the grass: “Grow!”
Maybe, one cannot get to know the whole city
’cause the grass has a gift for concealing steps and moves.
One wouldn’t dare to go without the grass’s favour
That swallows the city and a low scream: “Escape!”
And the buzz of kiddies, and the low murmur of a mob…
The grass has flattened the city. But you get to burn the grass…

Місто, де з забутого від залізниці полотна
І від руїн театру, що затих давно, росте трава.
Бо там підвали містять більше ніж дахи.
Напевне, з них й шепочуть тій траві: «Рости!»
Напевне, годі місто те усе пізнати,
Бо має дар трава всі кроки й рухи заховати.
Піти кудись не зважаться без милості трави,
Яка поглине місто і тихий крик: «Втечи!»,
І гомін дітвори, й затвірний гам юрби…
Трава зрівняла місто. А ти траву спали…

Original poem by VASYL DOROSHENKO
Translation by TETIANA ALEKSINA
© All rights reserved 2013

GUEST POST // Twinkle, Twinkle by Whitecatgrove

O south star through the trees seen — where are
your kin on this flustered night? Hidden,
shy, sequestered in the sky above
the cooling clouds and their sparkling motes.

The half-empty moon has tipped his cup,
let the dregs fall upon the slumbered Earth.
We travel from darkness to darkness,
the light intermittent, inconstant,

afflicted with mighty tracts of void.
Your perturbations are a matter
of atmosphere: that is to say, Earth,
not that mighty glare on the other side

of time. We are phantoms: you of the past
long-dissipated, me of the future
yet unimagined, each tender view
occluded by ice crystals and chance —

by WHITECATGROVE
© All rights reserved 2026

TATI’s & TONY’s DEAD POET TOUR // Song. by Thomas Runciman

Life with the sun in it –
Shaded by gloom!
Life with the fun in it –
Shadowed by Doom!

Life with its Love ever haunted by Hate!
Life’s laughing morrows frowned over by Fate!
Young Life’s wild gladness still waylaid by Age!
All its sweet badness still mocking the sage!
What can e’er measure the joy of its strife?

What boundless leisure
Count the heaped treasure
Of woe, that’s the pleasure
And beauty of Life?

by THOMAS RUNCIMAN (1841 – 1909)
Public Domain Poetry

WORDS LIVE ON // Serhii Naumenko

Down through the ages, Russia has tried to kill the Ukrainian identity. They have done everything to present Ukraine as the rural outskirts of the ‘great, educated and advanced’ Russian empire. But the ones who proclaimed themselves enlighteners were merely butchers, murderers. They did everything they could to erase Ukrainian culture, traditions, and even the Ukrainian language itself.

And they are still doing this, even now, literally. During the last eleven years of war, Russia has killed hundreds of people of literature. Writers, poets, translators, editors, publishers and librarians. Ukrainian men and women. As you read these words, others are left to disappear in an unread draft forever.

There is a project called ‘Nedopysani‘ (‘Unfinished‘ in English). It’s a memorial site for people of literature who will never be able to put that final dot in their notebook, who will never be able to take into their hands their first published book. And so, this is our hard and painful mission. This is what we must do for them. It is inevitable.

Today, we present the next instalment of our translation series, ‘Words Live On’. We have done our best, and we hope that it will speak to our Dear Readers in a way that cold, clinical war statistics cannot.

Glory to Ukraine! To our heroes — glory!

if a lion or a cougar
start hunting you
don’t worry, don’t fight
don’t be afraid of
it makes sense to keep to one side
stray dogs and rats.
the predators with appetite
for you
are hardly
carnivorous.

якщо лев чи пума
почнуть полювання на тебе
не страшно, не бийся
не бійся
варто обабіч триматись
бродячих собак і щурів.
хижаки з апетитом
на тебе
навряд чи
м’ясоїди.

Original poem by SERHII NAUMENKO
Translation by TETIANA ALEKSINA
© All rights reserved 2020