The White Chalk of Days
The Contemporary Ukrainian Literature Series Anthology
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4378175 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Andrew Singer (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2018 |
| Volume | 92 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 92-93 |
| Publication date | 2018-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | World Literature Today (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0196-3570 • E-ISSN: 1945-8134 |
| Publisher | Project MUSE (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1353/wlt.2018.0207 |
| OpenAlex | W4206797580 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
moments in From Lone Mountain as John P. (as he is known to his legions of fans) discovering his dad saying the word “roof” in exactly the same apparently unusual way he does, and I found myself imagining the sound as I read his recounting of the incident. It probably vaguely rhymes with “hoof,” not with “goof,” as most people I know would say it. I love those sorts of regional dialect variations, and Porcellino is well traveled enough to have stockpiled hundreds. From Lone Mountain is dense with haiku-like short stories in the form of comics. It also features text pieces from Porcellino’s King-Cat Comics series, from which the book was compiled. Some of the text pieces are typeset, others are in Porcellino ’s distinctive hand lettering, and all are evocative, intimate, and moving, like handwritten letters from a faraway loved one. That’s really Porcellino’s work in a nutshell . He offers up observations from the whimsical to the profound and every shade of emotion in between. I’ve been reading autobiographical comics for nearly forty years, and it’s the genre of comics that most appeals to me. From Harvey Pekar’s gritty, urban short stories to the magical realism of James Kochalka and the family dramas of Jason Marcy, autobio comics have given me a glimpse of the inner lives of many great cartoonists. But none are more generous , thoughtful, and mind-expanding as the deceptively simple works of John Porcellino. In From Lone Mountain, John P. lives his life, makes his observations, and reports back to us with honesty, humor, and insight. To me that is literally the highest achievement possible in comics. Alan David Doane Whitehall, New York The White Chalk of Days: The Contemporary Ukrainian Literature Series Anthology Ed. Mark Andryczyk. Boston. Academic Studies Press. 2017. 336 pages. This dense, exciting anthology brings together fifteen Ukrainian poetry and prose writers with works from the lateSoviet and, mostly, post-Soviet period of the last twenty-five years. These writers were featured in live readings in the ConWorld Literature in Review 92 WLT MAY–JUNE 2018 temporary Ukrainian Literature series in NYC and Washington, DC, between 2008 and 2016, sponsored by the Harriman Institute of Columbia University and the Kennan Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center. Freed from imposed Soviet artistic strictures yet questioning also the inherited default narrative of Ukrainian nationalism —in both subject matter and style—this period has been one of immense discovery, broad experimentation, and intense debate among contemporary Ukrainian writers. The range is great, from rock stars to children’s authors, from old-guard intelligentsia through the newest lights. There are Viktor Neborak’s Bu-Ba-Bu (burlesquebluster -buffoonery) poems, popularized since the 1990s, Serhiy Zhadan’s funny, edgy, and strange poems, and one prose piece (“Owner of the Best Gay Bar”), and the sensual , mature prose of Sofia Andrukhovych (see WLT, Sept. 2005, 24–32). Poet, story writer, and novelist Yuriy Vynnychuk is an example of a writer who has straddled generations. Unable to publish his earlier works directly under the Soviet regime, he managed to get many into print anyway by pretending they were “translations” from Old Irish, Old Welsh, or “Arcanumian”—a civilization he had invented. The older generation is represented also by poet Hrytsko Chubai; active in the samizdat underground, many of his poems became popular only posthumously , when set to music and performed by his son: “let the silvery bass carved out of the moon / run before you / lighting the water’s way . . . / I won’t follow at Your heels / I’ll shut my eyes like falling leaves / I will not see / when the tracks’ leaves fall / from the time-worn branches of the paths.” In contrast, Ivan Malkovych has been hailed as a “phenomenon” of “new wave” poetics. It is from his poem “An Evening (Goose) Pastoral,” in keen translation by Michael M. Naydan, that the title of this volume derives: “it’s as though the geese / are small bundles of the white chalk of days— / God’s big bottles walking to the white . . .” Taras Prokhasko is represented by excerpts from his publication FM Galicia . It consists of three-minute
Art · Art history · Comics · Haiku · Linguistics · Literature · Poetry · Visual arts · Education, Literature, Philosophy Research · History · Military, Security, and Education Studies · Philosophy · Ukrainian Cultural and Linguistic Studies
| Citations per year | 0.43 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2019 - 2022 (4) |
| Highly cited | No |