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A FIELD OF FOUNDLINGS

A FIELD OF FOUNDLINGS

$18.00Price

ISBN: 978-0-9981963-4-3

Pub Date: Sept. 2017

Pages: 88


By Iryna Starovoyt

Grace Mahoney, translator


In A Field of Foundlings, Starovoyt investigates Ukraine’s suppressed generational memory of the 20th century and the new context of its retelling in Eastern Europe. Drawing on the paradoxes of mythology, technology, and tradition, Starovoyt brings the traces of undesirable histories and the minefields of memory into unexpected constellations that interrogate assertions of knowledge and meaning-making in our world today. In a time where the chaos and power of forces beyond our own seem to diminish the potency of the past, Starovoyt’s poems invoke a conscious dialogue with a past that is not severed from the ever-changing present, but echoes in our sense of self, brings some continuity to our daily decisions, and orients us toward the future.


A Field of Foundlings is the first volume in Lost Horse Press’ dual-language series of Contemporary Ukrainian Poetry.

    Ms. Starovoyt’s poetry delves into the past of the 20th century, one filled with immeasurable horror for her homeland. She shines the light on generational memories that were suppressed, and only now in recent times are being openly discussed in a new context.

    —Ksenia Rychtycka, The Ukrainian Weekly


    The startling gems in these poems must be partly to the credit of the translator, Grace Mahoney, but any translator of gems has to have original gems to begin with. Lost Horse Press in Idaho must also be congratulated for this initiative of the Contemporary Ukrainian Poets series, allowing us non-Ukrainian-speakers to appreciate the work of poets beyond the Carpathians.

    —Sarah Lawson, The High Window Reviews


    Iryna Starovoyt is a poet, essayist, and Associate Professor in the Department of Cultural Studies at Ukrainian Catholic University. Born in Lviv, Ukraine, she made her poetry debut with the book, No Longer Limpid, which was well received by critics and reserved her a place within the new generation of writers since Ukraine’s independence. Starovoyt’s work has been featured in several poetry anthologies and individual poems have been translated and published in Polish, Lithuanian, English, and Armenian, and set to music. Starovoyt was a Research Associate on the “Memory at War” project in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Groningen (2012-2013), the Netherlands, where she completed her 2014 collection of poetry, The Groningen Manuscript.



    Grace Mahoney is an emerging translator of Ukrainian and Russian literature. She is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Michigan. This is her first book of translations. Grace Mahoney is also the Series Editor for the Lost Horse Press Contemporary Ukrainian Poetry Series.

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