Hulanki & Swawole

The opening poem has God tinkering in a shed on a twenty-seventh version of the world, after twenty-six botched ones went into the bin, until a ring at the door makes the half-finished cosmos slip from his hands. The speaker, a poet living abroad, spends evenings in a canal-side bar called Hulanki & Swawole, chatting about class, gender and inflation while his phone streams blood from the roads near Soledar and Popasna. Friends caught up in the fighting want verses from him; he cannot write them and sends helmets, bandages and drones instead, wondering what words could do against a sniper's scope. Birds by the canal become drones, a soldier friend stops answering his calls, and a cycle lets Calypso speak as she watches Odysseus gaze out to sea.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Poetry

Length

76 pages in the original

Genres

War (assigned by AI)

First published

2024 by Wydawnictwo a5

Author's age

54 when first published

ISBN

9788365614605 (original)