Reviewed by Aline Soules
Passion and Longing: A Review of Love Letters to Ukraine from Uyava
by Kalpna Singh-Chitnis
River Paw Press
March 2023, Paperback, 110 pages, ISBN-13: 978-1736687147
This work was written “Fresh on the heels of editing the wide-ranging and necessary anthology Sunflowers: Ukrainian Poetry on War, Resistance, Hope and Peace,” according to Brian Turner’s quote on the cover. The implication is that the poet was so moved by the works she gathered for the anthology that she had to write the poems in this collection, and that implication is manifest in the passion of these poems. There are poems that “demand” the attention of the poem’s recipient, e.g., the interrogative “The Healer” with its first line, “Don’t Leave,” and the regretful “Air Raid: 11:10-01:24.23” that begins, “And I wish I had listened to you.”
The author, Kalpna Singh-Chitnis, exhibits great empathy for the Ukrainian people. For example, in “War: A One Way Street,” the poet “driving in [her] town,” imagines “sirens blaring, tanks rolling, / and guns pointing at people resisting.” There are no doves, no olive trees and as the stanzas unfold, she becomes “a woman raped,” “a fallen soldier,” “a father in exodus.” She has the emotional range to feel what they feel, calling herself “a person, and a nation, an ally, and an adversary.”
Yet, she is also able to see goodness and hope. In the poem, “Sunflower,” she “draw[s] a sunflower in the sand” and tosses it. Then demands, “Grab it if you can, and hand it to that little Ukrainian boy / walking alone, in tears, toward the border of a foreign land.” She describes the boy with his plastic bag, his diary with “the offenses of history,” and his burdens. The boy stops, “refusing to walk / in the direction, the world is going.” She ends: “In his halt are the hopes for the future.”
Likewise, in “A Lotus in the Autumn Garden,” the poet focuses on “the present moment, / blooming like a lotus in its purity.” Its scent is “a rare invitation to rise in awareness.” She demands that the reader
watch this miracle happening
even on a day when our pond is tinted with blood,
and its swamp can swallow us, if we ever makethe mistake of stepping into it.
The poet’s admiration for Ukraine and its people is intense. In “The Spirit of Ukraine,” dedicated to President Zelenskyy, she references her own father and compares the Ukrainian attitude and bravery to conquests and brutality that have occurred in her own original homeland, Bihar. Her father “hinted the enemy is stronger,” and advocated surrender to avoid more violence, but by the end of the poem and her comparisons of these two worlds, she concludes that her father “didn’t really want you to give up, dear Ukraine.” What he wanted was “your children to survive and thrive…/ and become triumphant.”
The Ukrainian resolve is reflected in many of these poems. “Phoenix” begins, “We sound like empty drums,” but the poet demands, “Hold my hands, my friend, / look into my eyes.” She decides, “There is no way for such a love to survive.” Yet, there is another stanza where she “promise[s] to rise like Phoenix / from the ashes of my being / in your skies, blue and yellow.” Despite despair, there is hope. Despite the David and Goliath nature of this war, there is strength, determination, and persistence.
On facing pages are two poems that apparently contradict one another. “Udumbara” references a supernatural celestial flower in Buddhist scriptures that blooms only once in three thousand years. The poem begins “Love cannot die. Don’t be a fool. / No weapon can cut and destroy love.” Through the poem, love survives and “When it dies, it becomes a cloud” that turns to rain and comes back to earth, no matter how rarely it blooms.
In “Nothing is Permanent,” on the facing page, Uyava’s light is extinguished, “But her demise is real, and her legends will live on.” She lives as hope, “ripe and sweet like a fruit in the sun you cannot reach.” The poet ends by urging, “Do not grieve for her, dear Ukraine. / Nothing is permanent, not even love.”
Such contradictions thread through this collection, making it human and offering the complexity of the world that can never be codified.
The reader is guided to and through this work by extensive comments from readers and admirers of this work. This is followed by an essay, “From heaven and earth,” that introduces the work of the poet’s long-time fellow poet and collaborator, Volodymyr Tymchuk, Lieutenant Colonel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Ms. Singh-Chitnis translated his work, and made friends with other poets who wrote from battlefields. These works appeared in the anthology mentioned in the opening of this review. Following “From heaven and earth” is a “Foreword” by Candice Louisa Daquin, Senior Editor Indie Blu(e) Publishing, who writes about the cross-cultural nature of this work and the poet’s empathetic understanding of Ukraine’s plight. She speaks of both the work and the poet.
After the last poem in the collection, “Nothing is Permanent,” there is a two-line poem that is not listed in the Table of Contents, but which expresses what the poet must have felt as she entered the Ukrainian experience and worked not only on this collection, but on translating Tymchuk’s and others’ works.
Knowing
I dipped my toe in a stream
not knowing it was a sea.
This is a work to read and re-read, especially as the war in Ukraine continues to move towards an end we do not yet know.
About the reviwer: Aline Soules’ work has appeared in such publications as the Kenyon Review, Houston Literary Review, Poetry Midwest, Galway Review, and Flash Fiction Magazine. Her book reviews have been published by Tupelo Quarterly, Colorado Review, Los Angeles Review, and others. She earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles. Online: https://alinesoules.com