Lyuba Yakimchuk's "Prayer"

The Daily Poem

Goldberry Studios

Education For Kids, Arts, Kids & Family

4.6 • 729 Ratings

🗓️ 28 February 2022

⏱️ 7 minutes

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Summary

Lyuba Yakimchuk was born in Pervomaisk, Luhansk oblast, in 1985. She is a Ukrainian poet, screenwriter, and journalist. She is the author of several full-length poetry collections, including Like FASHION and Apricots of Donbas, and the film script for The Building of the Word. Yakimchuk’s awards include the International Slavic Poetic Award and the international “Coronation of the Word” literary contest. Her writing has appeared in magazines in Ukraine, Sweden, Germany, Poland, and Israel. She performs in a musical and poetic duet with the Ukrainian double-bass player Mark Tokar; their projects include Apricots of Donbas and Women, Smoke, and Dangerous Things. Her poetry has been performed by Mariana Sadovska (Cologne) and improvised by vocalist Olesya Zdorovetska (Dublin). Yakimchuk also works as a cultural manager. In 2012, she organized the “Semenko Year” project dedicated to the Ukrainian futurists, and she curated the 2015 literary program Cultural Forum “Donkult” (2015). She was a scholar in the “Gaude Polonia” program of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage (Poland). In 2015, Kyiv’s New Timemagazine listed Yakimchuk among the one hundred most influential cultural figures in Ukraine.

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to the daily poem brought to you this month by bibliophiles. I'm Heidi White,
0:06.7	and today is Monday, February 28th. Surely everybody knows of the growing conflict in the Ukraine.
0:16.1	And today I'm going to read for you a poem by Ukrainian poet, Lubba Yakumchek. She's a contemporary poet currently
0:23.7	living in Kiev with her husband, and they have decided to stay in Kiev. They have recently
0:30.5	attended civilian military training. They've stocked up on food, installed an electric generator.
0:36.3	And in a recent interview with ideas,
0:40.7	Luba claims, quote, our plan is to stay in Kiev and try to be helpful. Tomorrow, we are going to
0:46.9	donate blood for Ukrainian soldiers. I guess it won't be easy for us, but Putin's regime will fall
0:52.4	apart. We will be witnesses. The poem I'm going to
0:58.3	read for you is called prayer, and this is how it goes. Our father, who art in heaven of the full moon
1:05.9	and the hollow sun, shield from death my parents whose house stands stands in the line of fire and who won't abandon
1:13.9	it like a tomb. Shield my husband on the other side of the war, as if on the other side of a river,
1:21.8	pointing his gun at a breast he used to kiss. I carry on me this bulletproof vest and cannot take it off. It clings to me
1:31.3	like a skin. I carry inside me his child and cannot force it out, for he owns my body through it. I carry
1:40.4	within me a motherland and cannot puke it out, for it circulates like blood through
1:47.0	my heart.
1:48.8	Our daily bread, give to the hungry and let them stop devouring one another.
1:55.0	Our light, give to the deceived and let them gain clarity and forgive us our destroyed cities even though we do not
2:04.1	forgive for them our enemies and lead us not into temptation to go down with this rotting world
2:11.2	but deliver us from evil to get rid of the burden of a motherland, heavy and hardly useful.
2:19.3	Shield from me, my husband, my parents, my child, and my motherland.
2:27.3	I chose this poem as a witness to war poetry.
	...

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