This is the first bilingual Russian-English book by Ukraine’s major poet Aleksandr Kabanov. Poems that predicted and now chronicle the Russian-Ukrainian war, filled with intimate confessions, epic verdicts, surreal fantasies, hard facts and exquisite metaphors, gain additional interpretative layers via the caring and daring input of twenty gifted translators. Kabanov’s poems written in wartime Kyiv have become a symbol of Culture confronting Evil. The fact that these verses were originally written in Russian is crucial. Kabanov’s poetry is the best vindication of the great language of his father’s ill-fated homeland, once again taken over by a monstrous tyranny. The courage and vulnerability of these verses, their sorrow and wit, defy death and celebrate life in our turbulent times.