Today’s New Verse News: 2 Poems In Memory of Yuriy Kerpatenko
HOW NORMAL LIFE IS IN KHERSON!
by Bonnie Naradzay
Russian soldiers have shot dead a Ukrainian musician in his home after he refused to take part in a concert in occupied Kherson, according to the culture ministry in Kyiv. Conductor Yuriy Kerpatenko declined to take part in a concert “intended by the occupiers to demonstrate the so-called ‘improvement of peaceful life’ in Kherson”, the ministry said in a statement on its Facebook page. The concert on 1 October was intended to feature the Gileya chamber orchestra, of which Kerpatenko was the principal conductor, but he “categorically refused to cooperate with the occupants”, the statement said. —The Guardian, October 16, 2022
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How normal life is in Kherson, ruled by Russian invaders since April! A life of repression, kidnapping, and mass detainment of its citizens. How normal life is in Kherson! with Russian invaders planning a concert for the first of October to show how normal life is in Kherson while deporting everyone to unknown locations from Kherson because this is how normal life is in Kherson. The conductor for the concert, that the Russian invaders insisted on, to show how normal and calm it was, Yurii Kerpatenko, declined to take part . So in true Soviet tradition the invaders went to his home and murdered him, to prove how normal life is in Kherson.
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Bonnie Naradzay’s poems are scheduled for publication in Crab Creek Review, Dappled Things, and The Birmingham Poetry Review, and appear in AGNI, New Letters (Pushcart Nomination), RHINO, Kenyon Review online, Tampa Review, Florida Reviewonline, EPOCH, Pinch (Pushcart Nomination), American Journal of Poetry, Potomac Review, The Poetry Miscellany, and other places, and her essay on friendship was published recently in the anthology Deep Beauty. She leads weekly poetry sessions in day shelters for the homeless and at a retirement center.
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KILLING IS IN THE AIR
by David Radavich
On the murder of Yuriy Kerpatenko
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Ours is the age of barbarians. When life is valued little as a song. A conductor refuses to lead the music of his oppressors and is shot dead without his baton. Soldiers who shoot him fear no lingering guilt, no final judgment, no cosmic shame. The man who dies is an ant to be squished, a former echo only. Let us hope the silence will accuse forever, that angels will sing the conductor to his final place enhemmed in flowers.
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David Radavich's poetry collections include two epics, America Bound and America Abroad, as well as Middle-East Mezze and The Countries We Live In. His latest book is Unter der Sonne / Under the Sun: German and English Poems (2022).