00:00Now, I often think about the disappointment that the world turned out to be nothing like
00:07I imagined it would.
00:11That every war ends with a walk to the cemetery.
00:15Dmitry Lazutkin is part of Ukraine's new generation of military poets, using free verse
00:22to document the raw realities of war.
00:26Dmitry was a poet and journalist before the war.
00:29He joined a frontline brigade last summer and wrote on his phone during breaks in the
00:34fighting.
00:37Every poem broke through my silence.
00:40Serving in a unit on the battlefield is basically a constant attempt to order the chaos that's
00:45happening around you and the chaos that's inside you.
00:50Dmitry, who was recently appointed as a spokesman for the defence ministry, says his poetry
00:56channels the daily tragedies of Ukraine's grinding conflict.
01:02Rolling Stones is about a soldier whose wife calls him from Germany, saying she and their
01:07children are not going back.
01:10He asks his commander to send him to the front.
01:13What are we fighting for?
01:15For the lines at the Polish border?
01:16For the stability of European democracy?
01:19For the rage of the generals?
01:20For the faith of the dead?
01:21For the wheezing in our lungs?
01:25War poetry readings like this one attract civilians and veterans.
01:33Vasyl Mulyk has long been a pilot.
01:37Now he's also a poet.
01:39He's on leave for a few days reading his work.
01:42It was important to experience these moments that Vasyl lived through in the war, which
01:47we here are far away from and cannot feel.
01:52High-quality poetry like this takes me through catharsis.
01:55It makes things a bit easier.
01:58I don't want to rely on antidepressants or turn to drink like many other veterans.
02:04I left the army three months ago.
02:10Yaryna Chornohus was a poet before signing up as a combat medic.
02:15This is my comrades, this is our position.
02:18She writes from the front lines.
02:22The world has rallied for the defense of this land.
02:25And even if there is something after this, even then, we will probably never truly need
02:30anything else.
02:33She nearly stopped completely when several of her colleagues were killed in the first
02:37months of the full-scale invasion.
02:40When you are silent about very tough stuff, this silence makes these terrible things of
02:49war much bigger.
02:51But when you can talk about this, when you can talk and write poetry even about the hardest
02:56experience, it means it could be survived.
02:59So poetry definitely makes us stronger.
03:03Stronger but still vulnerable.
03:06Many of Yaryna's fellow war poets have been killed.
03:10One of the most famous was Maksim Krizov.
03:13He died in combat near Kharkiv last year.
03:16It was painful for me as for all of the society.
03:22Maksim Krizov is buried here, in his hometown of Rivne.
03:27A street in Kyiv is named in his honor.
03:30It will be left to other soldier poets to document the rest of the war.
03:35And one day, it's end.
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