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by Serhiy Zhadan

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Translated by Michael M. Naydan

Everything, as always, is justified—
All the roads you’ve traveled and even the futile ones,
All those rough morning awakenings
At filthy, empty train stations,

All the moths of hope that stubbornly
Beat against the age-old lantern of the moon,
Even those of us who’ve rubbed our feet raw
On the road to our justification.

Serhiy Zhadan

Serhiy Zhadan was born in the Luhansk Region of Ukraine and educated in Kharkiv where he lives today. He is the most popular poet today in Ukraine and the author of twelve books of poetry that have earned him numerous national and European awards, including the 2022 EBRD Literature Prize for his novel The Orphanage. Zhadan’s books have been translated into English, German, French, Italian, Swedish, Norwegian, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Belarusian, Lithuanian, Latvian, and Russian. He is the front man for the band Zhadan and the Dogs, and has collaborated on theatre and performance projects with Yara Arts Group since 2002. Yale University Press published his selected poems as What We Live For/What We Die For, translated by Virlana Tkacz and Wanda Phipps in 2019.

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