“Seven Ukrainian Poems” is an ongoing project bringing contemporary Ukrainian poetry to English-speaking readers. It focuses particularly on poetry written during Russia’s war against Ukraine, and mostly the work of poets who are serving in the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
The themes and styles vary wildly, yet they are united by the experience of writing during the war.
I started the project in January 2024 as an irregular personal publication on my Twitter, and then evolved into a seven-poems issue format, hence the project’s name. (At some point, it was claimed to be “Seven Ukrainian Poems A Week”, i.e. a continuous weekly project, but I ran out of steam eventually.)
Currently, the issues are occasional at best, but I am still working on the translations when I have time.
I am by no means a professional translator, and these translations are not intended as definitive or scholarly versions of the poems. I translate them because I want our voices to be heard by people who can’t read the originals. My aim is to preserve as much as possible of the poem’s meaning, voice, rhythm and particular character while making it work as an English-language poem.
Note that, since the start of the project, some of the poets featured in the project had their books published in literary English translations. I plan to add individual author pages and relevant links soon.
About the translator
I am Victor Shepelev aka zverok, a programmer and writer from Kharkiv. Author of Ukrainian-language novel “Ukrainian Jonathan and Twenty-Seven Dead Men”, featured in the official “Ukrainian Writers-in-Arms” catalogue and English-language (unpublished) novel “Going to Yalta After The Apocalypse.”
I am serving in the Armed Forces of Ukraine since March 2023; currently, I am not on the front lines (developing military software), so I have a possibility to work on these translations sometimes.
As of 2026, I am also working on a translation of Fedir Rudy’s book of poems together with the magnificent Fiona Benson.
