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CONTEMPORARY VISUAL POETRY BY NORTH AMERICAN POETS OF UKRAINIAN DESCENT by TATIANA NAZARENKO Visual poetry is poetry meant to be seen, a kind of synthesis of visual and literary art. In North American, visual poetry is considered quite a new phenomenon, widely proliferated only since the 1950’s. But North American visual poetry by authors of Ukrainian descent should be viewed as a conti nuation (at least indirectly) of a rich tradition of visual writing which originated as early as the Xlth century, flourished during the Baroqe era, and was later revived by the Panfuturist movement of the XXth century. There is no doubt that for North American poets of Ukrainian descent, born and raised in a predominantly non-Ukrainian environment, English is the main language of comunication and West ern culture is a far more infuential factor in form ing their creativity than ethnic heritage. However, in many cases, the handling of ethnic themes and motifs by these poets is considerably enriched by the synthesis of the inventions of their Ukrainian predecessors and those of Western masters. Among the North American poets of Ukrain ian descent, Edmonton based visual poet Jars Balan has made the most remarkable contribution to the development of the genre. He also has the largest corpus of works oriented towards Ukrain ian motifs which are expressed in goemetrical compositions using a handful of recognizable Ukrainian letters or stylistycally complex words reflecting Ukrainian issues. Whether communicat ing his message in English or Ukrainian, Balan seldom resorts to the sentence or traditional verse as the basic unit of composition. His creations mostly rely on words which function as a complex idea —traditional syntax is replaced by spatial relationship. An example of this style is “Holod” (Figure 1) which points to one of the most tragic events of modern Ukrainian history, the Stalin-created fam ine of 1932-1933. According to recent research, five to seven million Ukrainians perished in this deliberate act of genocide, though some histori ans believe that this shocking figure might be even higher. In submitting his interpretation of the event for a reader’s consideration, Balan provides min imal but essential data to convey his message — the word “ГОЛОД” and a succession of zeroes in a framed panel which is bracketed by two dates, 1932 and 1933. The zeroes, with a period to set off thousands or millions, suggest the unknown number of victims. The panel itself resembles the inscription on a tombstone; death and tragedy are гОлОд 1932 1933 Fig. 1. Jars Balan. “Holod” (“Famine”). 16 ’’НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, ЧЕРВЕНЬ 1997 Видання C оюзу Українок A мерики - перевидано в електронному форматі в 2012 році . A рхів C У A - Ню Йорк , Н . Й . C Ш A.
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