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THE METAMORPHOSES OF OLEH ZUJEWSKYJ by TATIANA NAZARENKO Those who have been exposed to the poetry of Oleh Zujewskyj (1920-1996) at least once can never mistake his verses for those of another poet. The poetry of Zujewskyj (who was born in Ukraine, became an American citizen after World War II, and lived in Canada for thirty years until his recent death) is highly recognizable, though it echoes various modern poetic and artistic trends. The body of Zujewskyj's poetic work is not large. After five decades of intensive creative work, he published only eight collections of verse: Zoloti Vorota (The Golden Gate) in 1947, Pid Znakom Feniksa (Under the Sign of the Phoenix ) in 1958, Holub Sered Atel'ie (A Pigeon in the Studio) in 1991, Vybrane (Selected Poems) in 1992, Kassiopeia in 1992, Parafrazy (Paraphrases) in 1992, Obitsanka Radosty (The Promise of Joy) in 1995 and the cycle Estakady (Estacades) in 1995. Zujewskyj's poems have been well received by critics and members of the general public in Ukraine where the poet also has a reputation as an accomplished translator. To his credit are masterful translations from Guillaume Apollinaire, Paul Valery, Stephane Mallarme, Arthur Rimbaud, Jean Cassou, R.M. Rilke, Stefan George, William Shakespeare, William Butler Yeats, Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth B. Browning, David Ignatow and E.D. Blodgett. The reverse process has never been fruitful. For various reasons, Zujewskyj's poetry has not yet received the translator's attention it is due. Only a handful of poems have been translated into foreign languages and only ten have appeared in English. Unfortunately, most of his work remains unknown to those who cannot read Ukrainian. One of the most remarkable aspects of Zujewskyj's poetry is associated with his "translation" of the language of visual art into his own diction, usually accompanied by the metamorphosis of the images “borrowed" from famous artists. Such a technique implies the poet's "rethinking" and "refeeling" of another creator's intellectual and emotional experience as his own.1 There is no mistaking that in the poem "Around the Fish" from the collection Pid Znakom Feniksa the images are taken from the picture (under the same title) of the Swiss surrealist painter Paul Klee (Fig. 1), but they have undoubtedly passed through the consciousness of the Ukrainian poet. With a certain degree of accuracy, Zujewskyj introduces a couple of details which might be seen on Klee's canvas. Nonetheless, the poem is not intended to describe the picture. Those who have never seen Klee's work can hardly fancy it in their imagination no matter how deeply they immerse themselves into poetic discourse. Zujewskyj prefers to deal with his personal impressions triggered by observing the picture rather than with the work of art as such. Thus his poem is a meditation on Klee's vision of the world and deeply felt expression of this sensuous experience. Like other surrealists, Klee believes that the world around him is a dynamic construct where incongruous images reveal their essence in the process of their juxtaposition. Geometrical shapes, often deformed or disproportioned, fragments of material objects, loose conventional signs and figures floating in the pictorial space are typically employed as structural elements of Klee's collages and compositions. "Around the Fish" is not an exception. It may be treated as a rebus. But it may also be interpreted as a symbolic message imprinted on seemingly disintegrated elements, conveying the code for composing unity through multiplicity. According to Klee, the circle is associated with the notion of cosmic movement, while the arrow suggests length and direction. Klee's picture contains all these symbols of motion: the separated objects around the central figure of the fish are arranged to form the circle; at the top left of the picture is a red arrow. Thin lines stretch out from the arrow to the fish. Klee has succeeded in creating the impression that the depicted objects are not static -- they seem to be moving. But so has the poet. In the poem, Klee's intellectual concept of world dynamism is revealed through symbols of motion ("like map or branch extended into murkiness", "...the lightless horoscope of streams," where "stream" as "a steady flow of water" implies the idea of movement and change as well). The image of the fish which "seeks out her passageways among resplendent beams" also responds to Klee's perception of this dynamic and free creature. For Klee, the fish does not have any fixed location and becomes the symbol of the endless quest for place in the Universe. Zujewskyj, like the Swiss painter, also associates the image of the fish with the "НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, КВІТЕНЬ 1997 15
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