Svetlana Ischenko tackles the creative tension between her identity as a Ukrainian poet, with deeply Ukrainian sensibilities, and that of an immigrant poet enthused by her adopted country.

In Nucleus readers will see through a Ukrainian immigrant’s eyes as she looks back at the land and traditions of her original country. This collection illuminates Ischenko’s poetic transformation, from a heroic crown of sonnets to freer, lyrical pieces, but all within the dynamic of Ukrainian and Canadian subject matter and sensibilities. A powerful collection, made even more profound in light of recent events in Ukraine.

Nucleus includes a fascinating introductory essay that explores the immigrant’s translation of self in a new country.

Svetlana Ischenko is an award-winning poet, translator, former actress and teacher. She was born in Mykolaiv, in southern Ukraine, where she established herself as a stage actress and poet before immigrating to Canada in 2001. She is the author of several books and chapbooks of poetry, essays and dramatic plays in Ukrainian and English. In Canada, her poems have been published in The Antigonish Review and Event and were included in the anthology Che Wach Choe/Let the Delirium Begin (Leaf Press) and the chapbook In the Mornings I Find a Crane’s Feathers in my Damp Braids (Leaf Press). She lives with her family in North Vancouver, B.C.

Svetlana Ischenko's profile page

"Nucleus is not only a showcasing of a transcendent poetic gift, but also a lyrical testimony to what it means to be Ukrainian and Canadian.” — Angela Girard, North Vancouver City Councillor

“The heroine in Svetlana Ischenko’s Nucleus views the world through the lenses of two homelands, one native and one acquired, and this gives her poetry depth, subtlety, and a polyphonic quality, turning it into a bird of lyrical utterance winging over an ocean between beloved shores and releasing its coded feathers across the waves.” — Teodozia Zarivna, Ukrainian poet, novelist, playwright, and journalist, author of the novels Willow Board and Hunting for Birds of the Sky