RIP Oleh Lysheha 1949-2014

 Oleh Lysheha (Ukrainian: Олег Лишега) is a Ukrainian poet, playwright,translator and intellectual. Lysheha entered Lviv University in 1968, where during his last year, he was expelled for his participation in an "unofficial" literary circle, Lviv Bohema. As punishment, Lysheha was drafted into theSoviet army and internally exiled. During the period 1972-1988, he was banned from official publication, but in 1989 his first book Great Bridge(Velykyi Mist) was published. For "The Selected Poems of Oleh Lysheha," Lysheha and his co-translator James Brasfield from Penn State University, received the 2000 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation published by the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute. Lysheha is the first Ukrainian poet                                                                     to receive the PEN award.

---

From Voldymyr Bilyk's Laugh Poems (proudly published here at Underground Books)
 a Translation of Song 551 by Oleh Lysheha

Song 551


Kick your head against the ice! - 'till
its too late
Kick your head against the ice! -'till
its too dark
Get out! Get Out!
You gonna see this Brave New
World...
Carp - he's difference - he does De
Profundis
To the very bottom - 
he lives there
to be catched someday
But you're human - no one will ever 
catch ya
Carps are different
For centuries
their possess lay down slowly
their posses, Murky-shy -
They go to the other side.
and our time goes after them?
They tip each others paddle just like
hand
and run... are you marooned?
Youre human -
don't be so desperate - you'll stave it!
Kick your head against the ice - 'till
its too late!
O beautiful unseen and snowy 
world...

---