Lybster poet's new book 'crosses borders to the end of the line'
A Lybster-based poet's latest book traces a "journey of hope" from the fertile heartlands of 1930s Ukraine, to Nazi death camps, prim English suburbia and ends under the open skies of Caithness.
The Rush of Lava Flowers: Poems of Survival and Hope by Lydia Popowich is a tale spanning three generations that overflows with truth and beauty, a reflection of life truly seen; harsh and gentle, kind and cruel. The poems are well-crafted, telling vivid, powerful, and stunningly honest stories of belonging, of being an outsider, with expansive ideas that seek to find the meaning behind it all.
Lydia says: "The main theme of the poems is hereditary trauma, how extreme trauma is passed on between generations even biologically through permanent changes to DNA. So it is an ever repeating cycle of grief and children are not born free but already emotionally scarred."
She adds that the poems chronicle some of the experiences of her family when they were refugees and features her maternal grandmother, Anna, on the cover holding a cat. "The photo was taken by British authorities in a displaced persons camp in Germany after the war ended in 1945.
"The cat was a stray who was hanging around the camp and my granny adopted her even though they had little to eat themselves. It took a further two years before my family were given permission to enter the UK."
The Rush of Lava Flowers "celebrates the strength of human spirit" – like plants that grow back on the edge of a volcano after an eruption, people are endlessly resilient. Lydia says the poems speak not just of one family but of our times as the trauma of war and migration continues to haunt future generations. "History is found not only in books but in our bones and in our dreams," she adds.
This is her second poetry collection and a follow-up to The Jellyfish Society which was published in 2016 by Paper Swans Press. Her writing has appeared in anthologies and literary journals including Northwords Now, The Interpreter’s House, Ambit, Magma and Under the Radar.
Lydia has a background in visual arts and studied art in Newcastle during the nineties. Her paintings and photographs have been widely exhibited. She worked for many years as a community artist and was a prominent figure in the early days of the Disability Arts Movement. She was born in England to parents of Ukrainian origin and migrated to the far north in 2005 where she plans to stay.
"I am hoping that The Rush of Lava Flowers will help people to empathise with refugees and immigrants. Since Brexit there seems to be less compassion to go round. That saddens and worries me. My family were lucky enough to be given a fresh start in 1947. But would that happen now?"
The Rush of Lava Flowers: Poems of Survival and Hope is available to buy from Amazon in paperback at £6.99 and on Kindle at £1.99 www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09BGKKG3T