Irina Rypka (Ukraine)
Translated by Olga Zvyeryeva (Netherlands)
white balance – that’s what I want to maintain
not to draw a chalk body outline
not to worsen the strained atmosphere
to be light like a breath of fresh air
to love –
love your enemies as yourself
and all the archangels will trumpet in heaven
the one who was a foe
now takes the first step forward
and offers you a mignonette sprig
to clear the rottenness and the sting,
the tar of old grudges, a slanderous hiss,
and soothe your ache with a kiss
Баланс белого
хочется соблюсти баланс белого
не обвести кого‑то мелом
не усугубить напряжённую обстановку
быть лёгкой и звонкой
любить —
возлюби врага как самого себя
и тогда архангелы радостно вострубят
был человек — враг
а теперь навстречу делает шаг
и протягивает веточку резеды
чтобы вылечить от червоточины и беды
от пустого навета от липкой смолы обид
и подуть туда где болит
Translator’s note. Stylistically, Rypka’s poem is a raeshnik verse characterized by free meter and paired rhymes to create a vivid and rough narration, similar to street performances or even rap. Combined with the almost non-existent punctuation, the rhyming scheme becomes the poem’s structural backbone and the primary marker of its belonging to the domain of poetry. This rhyming scheme presents a particular challenge in translation: while the poem begins with loose rhymes, they tighten toward the end, heightening the tension of the final lines.
In my first version of the final line—“and gently blow on your wound”—I wanted to be faithful to the literal sense of the original, but I failed to come up with a forceful rhyme to produce the punch‑like ending that the poem demands. More importantly, it might not be a vivid concept for English speakers: as one of my colleagues pointed out, “kiss away the pain” would be much more idiomatic and culturally resonant. With this suggestion, I changed the ending to “and soothe your ache with a kiss”, which sounded stronger phonetically and provided me with a plethora of potential exact rhymes. Since the preceding lines formed a catalogue of troubles and maligns of the world, I decided to work from the final line and to reorder this imaginary catalogue to restore the fluidity and the sense of urgency. In my final version of the translation, I chose to prioritize the emotional development over the lexical mirroring of the original version and build up the pressure on the exact rhyming and the imagery that would be more natural for the English-speaking reader.
Irina Rypka was born in 1981 in Russia. Her poems have been published in journals, and in the collections Interealnost and Irkutskoe Vremya. She authored two books of poetry. Rypka is a laureate of numerous festivals and contests, including Baltic Championship of Russian Poetry, Interealnost, and Russian Poetry World Cup. She is a trained nurse and lives in Kyiv.
Olga Zvyeryeva was born in Kharkiv, Ukraine. She is a sociolinguist, holding a PhD in Germanic Languages. She authored two poetry collections and has won awards at international poetry festivals. Her poems have been published in anthologies and online in Ukraine, Russia, Germany, the Czech Republic, Israel, and the United States. She is an editor of the literary platform Tochka Zreniya.
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