Lan Nadiia.Perekotypole = Tumbleweed: poems.[Unpublished], 1978

Nadia Lan. Tumbleweed: Poems / cover by Yakiv Hnizdovsky.

[Unpublished]: Vodohrai Publishing House, 1978. — 117 pp. — Printed by Trident Press Ltd., Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Title page in Ukrainian and English.

In a publisher’s softcover with black print on pale yellow paper: the front cover features Yakiv Hnizdovsky’s composition of tumbleweed caught on wires above grass, with the title set in stylized letters; the back cover bears the Vodohrai Publishing House mark, depicting streams of water above waves. The front cover has light soiling and small spots, with slightly worn edges. The back cover is heavily toned, with dense foxing, dark spots, moisture stains at the bottom, and a dark vertical streak in the center. The text block is firm, and the paper is slightly yellowed; pages 46–47 have gray spots and soiling, and page 14 has a single spot. Condition: good.

The author’s first poetry collection. Yakiv Hnizdovsky’s cover is of independent artistic interest; the book has historical and cultural value and is of collector’s interest.

INFORMATION

Yakiv Hnizdovsky designed the cover depicting tumbleweed caught on wires above steppe grass, and in the foreword the author thanks him separately for the decoration, “as always precisely executed by his hand.” The poem of the same name gave the collection its title. The poems were written over two decades, from the mid-1950s to 1975: dedications to Symonov Petliura, the soldiers and veterans of the Army of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, Yevhen Konovalets, the heroes of the Bazar and Kruty, elegies for the kobzars, and poems for children. A separate section contains translations from English (Robert Frost, Ralph Waldo Emerson) and Russian, including Yevhen Yevtushenko’s “Copyright.”

The English-language note in the book states that the author arrived in the United States with the post-war wave of emigration, published essays, poems, and historical studies in the press under various pseudonyms, spoke at public meetings, worked extensively with young people, and was the editor-in-chief of The Herald—at the time the only Ukrainian music quarterly in the world. “Tumbleweed” is described there as her first, long-awaited poetry collection.

The book was published at the expense of poetry-loving friends and the Ukrainian community of San Diego, California; according to the author’s acknowledgments, the publishers N. and S. Novitskyi bore the lion’s share of the costs. It was printed by Winnipeg-based Trident Press. Yakiv Hnizdovsky (1915–1985) was one of the most distinguished Ukrainian graphic artists of the 20th century, a master of woodcuts featuring plant and animal motifs; he lived in the United States from 1949 and designed many books published by diaspora presses. The cover of “Tumbleweed” is executed in the same style as his woodcuts of trees.