Boris Dralyuk
@bdralyuk.bsky.social
1.8K followers 1.9K following 330 posts
My Hollywood & Other Poems (Paul Dry Books); translate Babel, Zoshchenko, Kurkov, et al.; odds & ends @nybooks.com, @thetls.bsky.social, etc.; teach at @utulsa.bsky.social; EiC @nimrodjournal.bsky.social
Posts Media Videos Starter Packs
Pinned
bdralyuk.bsky.social
It feels right to see the faces of so many hopeful and weary, desperate and giddy men just outside the gates of success on the cover of SIDETRACKED. Voloshin’s poignant, funny poem ennobles their dreams and struggles as much as it does his own. Thank you, @pauldrybooks.bsky.social!
Reposted by Boris Dralyuk
frankgarrett.online
Really exquisite, potent poems translated by @bdralyuk.bsky.social.
bdralyuk.bsky.social
I can’t help sharing another of Mykola Bazhan’s poems revisiting Adam Mickiewicz’s exile in Odesa and Crimea in 1825. This one is a magnificent evocation of the power of the Black Sea.
bdralyuk.bsky.social
Many thanks indeed, Frank!
bdralyuk.bsky.social
I can’t help sharing another of Mykola Bazhan’s poems revisiting Adam Mickiewicz’s exile in Odesa and Crimea in 1825. This one is a magnificent evocation of the power of the Black Sea.
bdralyuk.bsky.social
And now we have a US cover, with thanks to @harpercollins.bsky.social!
bdralyuk.bsky.social
Sample before you buy: bsky.app/profile/bdra...
bdralyuk.bsky.social
I consider myself fairly well read when it comes to 20th-c. anglophone poetry. Seldom do I stumble upon completely forgotten poets who were both consistently masterful in their craft and truly original in tone. Not in one or two poems—consistently. Broomell is one such poet.
bdralyuk.bsky.social
Yes, only one scarce chapbook is missing.
bdralyuk.bsky.social
There were two full-lengths and two chapbooks. The chapbook of (mostly) sonnets about LA is superb!
Reposted by Boris Dralyuk
monostich.bsky.social
Thanks to @bdralyuk.bsky.social I’m sitting at Poets House reading a marvelous but forgotten poet.
Frontispiece to Myron H. Broomell’s 1947 collection The Time by Dialing.
bdralyuk.bsky.social
I’m so glad you got your hands on this at PH!
bdralyuk.bsky.social
Great poems both.
nimrodjournal.bsky.social
Read two poems from our Winter 2025 issue that “find support in Shakespeare’s lines, trying on his blank verse and tailoring it to their specifications”—Jana Prikryl’s “Small Hours” and Meg Kim’s (@megpieinflight.bsky.social) “The Second Line.”

nimrodjournal.substack.com/p/rehearsals...
“Rehearsals of Intimacy”
Poems by Jana Prikryl and Meg Kim
nimrodjournal.substack.com
bdralyuk.bsky.social
Definitely the latter!
bdralyuk.bsky.social
THE LOST SOLDIERS, Andrey Kurkov’s latest Kyiv mystery, has a UK cover!

My wonderful editor is making his way through the translation now. Today he sent me a nice note, highlighting a passage he particularly admired.
bdralyuk.bsky.social
A gem of a piece on LA’s Pioneer Chicken by the late Kaleb Horton, whom I regret never having met… He mentions the chain’s cameos in a few of my favorite things, like Warren Zevon’s “Carmelita” and “The Rockford Files.” Here’s Bukowski pulling up for his fix before a reading:
bdralyuk.bsky.social
I consider myself fairly well read when it comes to 20th-c. anglophone poetry. Seldom do I stumble upon completely forgotten poets who were both consistently masterful in their craft and truly original in tone. Not in one or two poems—consistently. Broomell is one such poet.
bdralyuk.bsky.social
Tonight in Tulsa!
bdralyuk.bsky.social
I’m looking forward to reading some new poems at Heirloom Rustic Ales in Tulsa at the end of the month!
bdralyuk.bsky.social
Mikhail Zhvanetsky, Odesa’s funniest man (stiff competition), died just after the 2020 US election. I wrote: “Now that the majority of my fellow citizens have rendered a verdict on the last four years, I hope they will not fall silent.” Well, here come real bans… So let’s talk.
bdralyuk.bsky.social
Adam Kirsch, that great Angeleno, has weighed in on PASSPORT TO PARIS, saving a few choice words for Duke’s Los Angeles poems! Read the whole thing below. And get the book from @pauldrybooks.bsky.social!

newcriterion.com/article/arch...
bdralyuk.bsky.social
The rhymes are seldom between the same words, but the original scheme is largely preserved! In other words, there are rhymes in both poems, in roughly the same places.
bdralyuk.bsky.social
Ukraine’s Mykola Bazhan (1904-83) had the Midas touch; all his verse turned to gold. This let him survive, barely, Stalin’s slaughter; he could make even Socialist Realism sound good. Yet his portrait of Poland’s Adam Mickiewicz in Odesa shows that he knew what drove true poetry.
bdralyuk.bsky.social
Ukraine’s Mykola Bazhan (1904-83) had the Midas touch; all his verse turned to gold. This let him survive, barely, Stalin’s slaughter; he could make even Socialist Realism sound good. Yet his portrait of Poland’s Adam Mickiewicz in Odesa shows that he knew what drove true poetry.
bdralyuk.bsky.social
Our days aren’t bright, but neither were the days Vernon Duke braved. He never lost the spring in his step and I aim to follow in his tracks. Join me, will ya? A playlist of Duke tracks to accompany PASSPORT TO PARIS AND LOS ANGELES POEMS (@pauldrybooks.bsky.social): open.spotify.com/playlist/0Wn...
Vernon Duke's Playlist to Paris and Beyond
open.spotify.com