Sam Zipursky
Прощання між зірок
А просто — жоден інший: я — це я.
Я теж умру. І кари не уникну.
1 смисл, моїм означений імʼям,
Як жовтий порох, витрусять за вікна З моїх речей, паперів і кімнат (Розкиданих і так — на півпланети!)...
Лиш, може, десь мій неназванний брат У котрусь ніч спросоння схлипне: „Де ти?.." І цього — досить. Так: пилковий слід На пальцях, що торкнуть старе свічадо, 1 світлий свист — мов нарти крешуть лід -
Ще довго буде в просторі звучати,
І, захлинувшись тайною, дитя
Закине ввись лице, од зрячих сліз студене...
І цього — досить: справдилось життя.
А далі - розбирайтеся без мене.
–Oksana Zabuzhko
Farewell between stars
Simply – nobody else – it’s me
It’s me. I too will pass,
And I will not escape the sentence
And the meaning that will be given to my name
like yellow mist
They will let fall from the window
From my possessions, my papers, and my rooms
(which are already spread over half of the planet)
But maybe, my unknown brother, one night, half-awake,
crying, will ask, “where are you?”
And that will be enough. So, this dusty trace on my fingers
That touch the old candlestick
And a bright whistle, as my sleigh is cutting through the ice,
Will permanently sound in the open space
And flooded with the mystery, my brother will raise his face, blinded with cold tears
And that will be enough. My life has been fulfilled
And from then on, deal with it without me.
–Translated from Ukrainian by Sam Zipursky
Farewell among the stars
And plainly – nobody else – it’s me
It’s me. I will also die
I will not go uninterrupted
The message that will be heard after my name
Like yellow powder
They will pour from my window
From my belongings, my documents, and my room
(which are already spread over half the planet)
But, maybe, my unknown brother, tonight, half-awake,
Will ask, “where are you?”
And that will be enough. So, this dusty trace on his fingers
That touch the old candlestick
And a gleaming whistle, as my frigid sleigh is cutting through the ice
Will still sound forever in the open space
And flooded with confusion, the child will raise his face, blinded with cool tears
And that is enough. I have been fulfilled
And from then on, you will deal with it without me.
–Translated from Ukrainian by Sam Zipursky
clue
(An erasure of my interview with Jay Zipursky)
I’m not so into either.
what do you mean by the question?
even my grandfather did not speak it.
I don’t think that applies to them.
I don’t think that was the case.
today, I have no clue.
–Sam Zipursky
Translator’s Statement
Oksana Zabuzhko is an author and poet, born in Lutsk, Ukraine in 1960 (European Parliament). She is a large proponent of international awareness of Ukrainian culture, and is one of the vice presidents of the Ukrainian PEN, an organization for free speech in Ukraine (Botanova). In her many published books, such as 1996’s controversial bestseller Fieldwork in Ukrainian Sex, she uses feminist theory to analyze Ukrainian identity and culture (Fondation Jan Michalski).
Her poem “Прощання між зірок” (roughly “Farewell Between the Stars”) was published in her 2000 compilation New Archimedes' Rule: Selected Poems 1980-1998 (title translated to English) but was written in 1992. The poem has 16 lines, contained in one stanza. It has a somber, reflective tone throughout. It details the ambiguous speaker grappling with their own death, and how they will leave the world afterwards. The poem is full of strange, vivid imagery, and ends in a reserved manner, with the final line translating roughly to, “and from then on, deal with it without me.”
The form, structure, and general theme of the poem is based on Horace’s “Exegi Monumentum,” published in The Odes: Book III in 23 BCE. Horace was a Roman poet born in 65 BCE. However, Zabuzhko’s interpretation does differ from Horace’s original poem. The syntax and structure of the contents of the two poems are similar, as well as the form. “Exegi Monumentum” similarly contains 16 lines, however they are split up into four stanzas. “Exegi Monumentum” grapples primarily with how Horace believes he is leaving his own body of work — it is the final poem in what he thought to be his last published book — and his death as a concept. The supposed monument, some argue, is his craft of poetry itself (Exegi Monumentum Aere Perennius). And as for his death, he muses that he will not entirely die if his legacy carries on. However, “Farewell Between the Stars” does not take this metapoetic approach. Rather, it tackles what it means to die on a more personal level.
The translation process for this poem was relatively straightforward. I met online with Yefim Somin, a Boston-based translator and actor. Unlike myself, Somin speaks Ukrainian, the original language of the poem. I found the meeting incredibly helpful and interesting, as he provided the connection to Horace’s work which I was not aware of. The main subject of this meeting, however, was to make a literal, word for word, translation of the original poem, which Somin did. The process for my two interpretive translations, in my opinion, was more akin to editing rather than translation. For my first translation, my intention was to bring over the melancholic tone of the poem in English. This was not a large task, as the poem is so steeped in both its tone and subject matter that even a word for word translation does preserve those aspects, to a certain extent. One specific example of a change I made was in the fifth line, where I changed “yellow powder” to “yellow mist.” This may seem subtle, but I think this imagery further evokes the somber tone, as it almost conjures the image of a foggy evening. For the second translation, I tried to preserve the theme and topic of the poem. One choice I made to bring this out is not a change from the literal translation, but something to contrast the first translation. The second line in the first translation reads, “It’s me. I too will pass.” Here, I use a less explicit word for death (“pass”) rather than outright saying “die.” However, in the second translation, as it focuses on the poem’s theme of death, this phrase reads “I will also die.”
An issue I had while editing the first translation was the 14th line. In the literal translation, it reads, “which will still sound for a long time in the open spaces,” which I found quite awkward. In the first translation, I changed it to, “which will permanently sound in the open space.” I decided to make the “open space” singular for two reasons. The first being that it represents the space left by the speaker after their death, and the second being that I thought it sounded better. I also included “permanently” rather than “for a long time” because it ties back into the theme. A struggle I faced during the second translation was the third line. In the literal translation, it reads, “I will not evade the punishment.” I thought that this phrasing was not fitting for what I was attempting in this version, which was extenuating the topic of the poem. So, I changed it to, “I will not go uninterrupted,” as I felt this wording was more fitting.
This process lent me an interesting view into translation. It was very surprising seeing someone fluent in a language so quickly translate a poem. I was surprised at how much I liked the original word for word literal translation, also. Something that stood out to me was the specificity of a certain word. The word “нарти,” Somin told me as he was translating, refers to a sled used by indigenous Siberian people. I did not choose to express this entire meaning in either of my versions of his translation, but he said that in the original it was emphasising the cold, northern imagery of the line. In both of my translations I simply used the word “sleigh.” Scholar Lorna Gibb mentions a similar linguistic phenomena. She writes, “indigenous languages often contain highly specialized vocabularies for landscapes, plants, and ecological systems, knowledge that can be invaluable for conservation efforts” (Gibb). This is seen in the example I gave from the poem, as the word is specialized to a very specific part of the world and the tools built to handle its specific weather. The word originates from Serbian, if I am not mistaken
Something I found myself looking back on more than I expected was my personal experience with the process. I have read many times, such as in Carina del Valle Schorske’s 2017 article, “Letter of Recommendation: Translation,” that translators view their work as a dignified art form. Schorske writes, “Sometimes well-meaning people will say: I love the translations, but what about your own work? I don’t really know what to say to that, because the work feels like mine.” (Schorske). For my translations, I did not feel the same way. As I mentioned earlier, I felt more like I was simply carrying over an existing work from one language to another. It may be in part because of the fact I did not actually translate the poem from one language to another, but I simply felt like I was editing the poem to fit a certain intention.
Additionally, I made an erasure poem out of text from a transcript of an interview with my father. The interview that this poem is based in was quite laid back and casual. While he was driving, I interviewed my father over the phone about our family’s history with language. The majority of the questions asked were relating to our family’s current and past relationship with our heritage languages. For the poem itself, I decided to take a lot of my father’s more vague statements to create a sense of ambiguity in the poem. Personally, I never felt very connected to the languages previous generations of my family spoke and I was never very familiar with exactly what they were. The opaque quality of the poem is meant to represent this relationship. I learned a lot from making this poem. While interviewing my father, I learned a lot about my family that I never knew before, such as the fact that my father’s grandfather spoke German. I also was not aware of the intricacies of how my great grandparents spoke their different languages in different communities. Specifically, he told me that in their closed-off Jewish communities they would speak Yiddish, but in other contexts — like doing business — they would speak Ukrainian and Russian.
Works Cited
Botanova, Kateryna. “Oksana Zabuzhko.” Poetry International, https://www.poetryinternational.com/en/poets-poems/poets/poet/102-5524_Zabuzhko.
European Parliament. “Oksana Zabuzhko: ‘Ukrainians are fighting to free Europe from the spectre of totalitarianism.’” European Parliament, 8 March 2022, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20220304IPR24786/zabuzhko-ukrainians-fight-to-free-europe-from-the-spectre-of-totalitarianism.
Fondation Jan Michalski. “Oksana Zaboujko From 13 August to 25 September 2020.” Fondation Jan Michalski, https://fondation-janmichalski.com/en/residences/residents/oksana-zaboujko.
Gibb, Lorna. “Why linguistic diversity matters.” Princeton University Press, 29 April 2025, https://press.princeton.edu/ideas/why-linguistic-diversity-matters.
Pantheon Poets. “Horace’s Monument.” Pantheon Poets, https://www.pantheonpoets.com/poems/horaces-monument/.
Schorske, Carina del Valle. “Letter of Recommendation: Translation.” The New York Times, 26 October 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/26/magazine/letter-of-recommendation-translation.html?unlocked_article_code=1.KU8.NSGW.7os4ChwRv53w&smid=url-share.
Worcester Cathedral Library and Archive Blog. “Exegi Monumentum Aere Perennius: Horace and his Poetic Immortality.” Worcester Cathedral Library and Archive Blog, 27 November 2014, https://worcestercathedrallibrary.wordpress.com/2014/11/27/exegi-monumentem-aere-perennius-horace-and-his-poetic-immortality/.
Zabuzhko, Oksana. “Biography.” Oksana Zabuzhko, http://zabuzhko.com/en/biography/index.html.