There’s a Poem for That: Svetlana Ischenko + Nucleus

All Lit Up: Can you tell us a bit about Nucleus and how it came to be?

Svetlana Ischenko: I put together this collection to explore my experience as an immigrant to Canada from Ukraine and what that has meant to me in terms of individual identity. I went from writing poems in my native Ukrainian to translating my poems from Ukrainian into English and finally to writing poems in English. The four sections of this collection enact that process: the first section is a translation of a sonnet sequence I originally wrote in Ukrainian; the final section consists of poems I wrote in English. When I first came to Canada, I wrote from an entirely Ukrainian sensibility. After a while, I found my imagination began to operate from the perspective of being both Ukrainian and Canadian. At the same time, my poems changed; they took on a Canadian feel.  

As readers go through the collection, they’ll get to know a little of the history of Ukraine, particularly the region of the southern steppes of Ukraine’s Wild Field, where I come from; they’ll get to know Canada through a Ukrainian immigrant’s eyes; they’ll get a sense of what it’s been like for me to become a Canadian and look back at the land and traditions of Ukraine; and they’ll be offered a view of identity beyond being Ukrainian or Canadian.

ALU: What sparked your initial love of poetry?

Svetlana Ischenko: My mother and my aunt read to me a lot when I was quite young – mostly rhymed poetry for children and fairy tales. Also, I was deeply affected by my maternal grandmother. She had a way with words, a habit of stringing rhymes through her sentences as she spoke in a sort of folkloric Ukrainian speech. Everything she said seemed to turn into a quotation, anecdote, or proverb. It gave me great pleasure. I suppose these experiences made me love making up rhymes beginning when I was around four years of age. I still have a love of rhyme, rhythm, and classical form in poetry.

ALU: Has your idea of poetry changed since you began writing?

Svetlana Ischenko: My idea of poetry hasn’t changed since I first began writing; it has only affirmed itself more intensely in me over time. Whether I’m writing a poem in a strict form or free verse, or whether it’s in Ukrainian or English, I’ll try to concentrate “a universe” into a poem. I think that when a poet succeeds in gathering images, metaphors, rhythmic patterns of sounds, and so on into a single piece where they work together to convey something of human experience, then a poet creates a universe. That universe is so concentrated that when it connects with a reader, it explodes, giving birth to the reader’s universe of experience and feeling. This continues to be my idea of poetry.    

ALU: If you were to set your collection to a soundtrack, what song is at the top of the listing?

Svetlana Ischenko: I’ve been fortunate to have had several of my Ukrainian-language poems set to music and performed as songs, hymns, and ballads. If I could have a poem in Nucleus put to music, I’d probably choose “There are a gull’s feathers…”; it’s a short poem that I think summarizes the collection. As for a song as a soundtrack to this collection, I’d have to say “Two Colours”, a song performed by Kvitka Cisyk (1953-1998), who was a Ukrainian-American singer. She became famous for singing commercial jingles like “Have You Driven a Ford Lately”, but her real achievement was giving a magical, deep-felt voice to popular songs, classical opera, and Ukrainian folk music.