A Sky Full Of Wings by Ksenia Rychtycka – NWVS #157
$14.99
“The poems that make up A Sky Full Of Wings carry readers on a journey rich with longing and loss, with the elation born from first steps, first love and bright, new surroundings. In this haunting collection, the journeys are physical and psychological, joyful and poignant such as the revelations that come in Poem For The Child Who Doesn’t Speak. On the trampoline you are poised like a bird/…Our eyes meet/ and then you rise higher than I can reach/ my arms cradling only air. Heartbreaking and healing and deeply life-affirming, this collection soars.”
–Laura Bernstein-Machlay, author of Travelers
“The poems of a true inheritor: watchful, quiet, life-stunned: heavy and alive with beauties and sorrows both present and past.”
–Olena Kalytiak Davis, author of four books of poetry, including The Poem She Didn’t Write And Other Poems
“Like the birds that permeate her evocative poems, Ksenia Rychtycka crisscrosses the ocean from Detroit to Ukraine as she guides us through the sinuous paths of her journey from childhood to present. With a feather-light touch that reaches immeasurable depth — through stories of four generations of her family — she honors centuries of the turbulent history of her native land. Along the way, she invites us to see this earth which has molded her, feel this wind that has carried her, embrace the rain that has opened each fragile bud and washed away pain and sadness. She has opened her heart.”
–Myrosia Stefaniuk, author of Dibrova Diary
Review:
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January 2022 Issue – Donovan’s Bookshelf
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MBR: MBR Bookwatch, January 2022
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Columbia College interview:
Review: https://readersfavorite.com/book-review/a-sky-full-of-wings
Description
A Sky Full Of Wings – NWVS #157
by Ksenia Rychtycka
$14.99, paper
978-1-64662-615-1
2021
Ksenia Rychtycka is a Ukrainian-American poet and author of Crossing The Border (Little Creek Books, 2012). Her poems and short stories have appeared in many literary journals and anthologies including Alaska Quarterly Review, The Dalhousie Review, The Literary Bohemian, Dunes Review, Yellow Medicine Review, Hubbub and The Wisconsin Review. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Columbia College Chicago and is a copy editor at a downtown Detroit ad agency.
Vera Sirota (verified owner) –
What a touching collection! A Sky Full of Wings documents Ksenia Rychtycka’s different phases of her life: her childhood in Chicago, youthful European pilgrimages with soul sister friends, finding the love of her life in Kyiv, witnessing her aging Mother, and raising her only daughter. Each phase is a journey in and of itself, leaving traces on Rychtycka’s heart, as in the words of Lina Kostenko, whose quote opens the book. Pick up a copy today – get lost in the lyrical poems and the strong Ukrainian imagery that will resonate for readers of all backgrounds.
Natalia –
Documenting journeys through generations and across continents, A Sky Full of Wings pulled me in with the stunning cover image and did not let go, even after the last poem was read. Concurrently gentle and powerful, each poem tells a story and captures the heart. Beautifully tender. Wonderfully alive. Highly recommended!
Dorene O’Brien (verified owner) –
In A Sky Full of Wings, poet Ksenia Rychtycka explores transformation, focusing on the spaces where opposing ideas and images merge to expand and enrich their otherwise mundane meanings. In these poems things rain from the sky like gifts: a lime green bird lighting onto a balcony, bees whose honey saves lives, the mercy of a warplane pilot, even the sun “skipping over a kilim rug” and “more dazzling than crystal earrings.” But these offerings from above are not always benevolent and this is where the collection gains its heft and delivers its message that nothing is as it appears, that change is inevitable, that nature, human and environmental, is in constant flux and interplay. Acorns, too, drop down but they are like bullets targeting a swing set, the sun slinks above the neighbor’s oaks like a spy, the flames over Chernobyl burn the sky as unwitting residents dance below. There are warnings here, deftly and beautifully rendered, even as Rychtycka performs alchemy, delivering both brutal and uplifting mutations. Liquid becomes rock in “The Night We Knew Everything” in which “the river I wanted to swim even then, current strong as a wall of stones” and pain becomes comfort through folk songs that “have traveled through blood-stained hands.” Here the author reveals the lure of things made more compelling by their history, by their complexity, and by their juxtaposition. This is a must-read collection by a writer at the height of her craft.