Description

From Volyn to Kherson: Interpretations of the War in Ukraine

From Volyn to Kherson: Interpretations of the War in Ukraine is a poetry collection that reacts, interprets and responds to news and reportage of the war in Ukraine through its first nine weeks.

The collection draws on these reports of the war to capture the shock and horror. To reflect the starkness of its impact on the people of Ukraine.

Why write about War in Ukraine?

The invasion of Ukraine and the onset of war in February 2022 were signalled long before the event. One consequence of the long build-up to invasion was the gathering of journalists and photographers, and of people with access to social media in huge numberse.

This conflict has been completely uncensored and uncurated in its reportage, as a result. The words and images are raw and real.

The author found himself in empathy with the people and victims of the war in Ukraine from the first reports. He poured his empathy into free verse poetry to tell and retell the stories he encountered and felt in ways that others might be able to relate to.

What would a line of tanks and armoured vehicles 70 kilometres long look like and feel like if they were aimed at your home, wherever it is that you live?

The collection covers only the first nine weeks of the conflict. Even a poet in the throes of his empathy can only cope with so much of this kind of exposure and experience. How  much worse to have to live it?

Other Work by Frank Prem

Other Free Verse poetry books by Frank Prem include:

• Small Town Kid – a memoir of growing in rural Australia in the 1960s and 70s.
• Devil In The Wind – the voices of victims and survivors the Black Saturday Bushfires in Victoria (Australia) in 2009.
• The New Asylum – a memoir of a lifetime spent in psychiatry.
• A Specialist at The Recycled Heart – Speculative fiction written in sparse free verse. The worlds at your feet.
• Ida: Searching for The Jazz Baby – The life and times of true crime girlfriend, associate, accomplice, wife and widow of ‘Squizzy’ Taylor, Ida Pender.

Picture-Poetry Books by Frank Prem include:

• Sheep On The Somme – poetry to accompany images taken on The Somme and Western Front during the first World War
• Voices In TheTrash– in which the objects found in a Trash and Treasure Barn tell their stories.
• Children’s books The Beechworth Bakery Bears and Waiting For Frank-Bear– in which the Teddy Bears resident at the Beechworth Bakery introduce themselves and their lives to young readers.