The Last Days of My Boyhood - Lena Tsykynovska

When I read Lena Tsykynovska’s poems, I know that I’m having the real experience of literature, in which the poems speak from the inner life of one person to the inner life of another, the reader, and also to the world. I love these poems the way that I love the beautiful dogwood tree in bloom nearby, in that we are here in this world together. These poems describe life as it must be lived and survived, and also the life inside of ourselves, as our senses act upon our imagination and show us what we know. We perceive things that are enormous and urgent from our small vantage point: “Now my/ cheek is so warm/ in the sun it’s practically sore/ from not getting kissed.” Who does not recognize this important feeling, which must be acknowledged?

 - Arda Collins

Lena Tsykynovska's "The Last Days of My Boyhood" begins with the speaker's declaration that they are "...a kind of God" and concludes with an invitation to "...come to the floor." In the space created between the heavens and the everyday, there runs a current—an electric thread—that skillfully pivots and dives, dips, and shoots skyward. Often, it is winter in these poems; the cold preserves time, and the poems become a kaleidoscope of crystals, each holding an object, a memory, or an observation. Lena uses the palette of memory and observation to transition from today to the past—a place no longer accessible, papered over, locked away in another country, another dimension, heaven; a place we don’t know, a place that existed—objects that shaped reality, words whispered in the night, the details.

 - Natalie Lyalin

Lena Tsykynovska is a poet who lives in Chicago, IL. Her poems and translations have appeared in Prolit Mag, Hobart, Asymptote, and Copenhagen, among others. The Last Days Of My Boyhood is her first full-length book.

Read poems by Lena Tsykynovska:

• “Historical Material 2020” from Last Days of My Boyhood in Copenhagen

• Two poems in Hobart

• Two poems in Prolit