Ghosting in Ukraine, A

A timely new poetry pamphlet from Patricia McCarthy. In these intimate, imaginative encounters with poets, artists, composers, and men and women caught up in the nightmare of war, borders are crossed, identities are imposed by history, but exiles are also brought home as Patricia McCarthy celebrates the Ukrainian heritage and cultural associations of a rich artistic diaspora that includes Anna Akhmatova (born in Odesa), Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Osip Mandelstam. ‘Patricia McCarthy creates an imaginative country which is a vast village, unbounded by time, yet contemporary, universal in its human variety, while proudly local. Akhmatova is only one of the immortals who “ghost” this landscape. She wrote of “the word that causes death’s defeat”. The power of “the word”, which McCarthy’s own country of origin, Ireland, has bequeathed her, is alive in the winter darkness of Ukraine – and in these poems which dare both to grieve and celebrate.’ Carol Rumens Author: Patricia McCarthy, half Irish half English, lived abroad for several years but has been settled for a long time in the countryside in East Sussex. She has been the editor of Agenda for more than twenty years. She won the National Poetry Competition 2013. Her recent collections are Rockabye (Worple Press 2019) Whose hand would you like to hold (Agenda Editions, 2020) and Hand in Hand, (London Magazine Editions/Agenda Editions, 2022).