Participants Young Poets

Natalie Yeryomenko

Ukraine

“I was born and raised in Chernivtsi where I have been living carelessly for 20 years. I studied at the gymnasium with a focus on the Humanities, and got though a canonical but quite broad literary basis. I greatly enjoy studying foreign languages  –  the English language has been already mastered; German and Polish languages are more difficult to learn. At the moment I’m obtaining higher education in Journalism and International Relations in Lviv and Chernivtsi respectively.

I’m fond of literature and travelling. I was lucky to visit many European countries and I’m not going to stop at what has been accomplished. This also concerns the books I have read, though lately such sites at “Djerelo” and “Refine” have provided all my reading due to the peculiarities of my study process — I don’t have time for anything else.

I don’t remember when I started writing but consciously it all began at the Vadym Koval literary competition which I entered thanks to my grandmother. For me the award ceremony became a literary discovery – as if I had been sitting in a locked room and somebody got up and opened the window. Before that I knew only the “old school” literature, classics mostly, and then I found out that there exists something fresher, younger, more interesting and powerful. Having listened to the poets who read their own and others’ texts, I also wanted to write like that.

That’s why when I applied for the competition in 2008 and 2009 both times I became a laureate, and in 2010 an almanac came out where my poems were also printed. Twice I took part in Chernivtsi slams, and was a winner of the first one. In 2009 I performed at Young Poets’ Republic within the scope of Lviv Book Publishers’ Forum at which one more almanac containing my poems was issued. My works were also published in the newspaper “Education In Bukovyna” and on sites “Insha Literatura” (Other Literature), “Rozhevyy Slonyk” (Pink Elephant) and “Vkurse” (Informed).

Everything in my life is fulfilled by 80% through luck or help and input of others. The rest 20% is done by impudence and the principle “whatever will be, will be”. That’s why I stick to the idea that any artist is just a conductor, not the source. I’m trying to keep on writing.”