"Nadzeya Stsyapanawna." Mikita Naydzionau Published a Poem Born in Zhodzina Prison. Such a Poetic Epic Has Not Yet Existed in Belarusian Poetry of the 21st Century.
The poet shared the story of the poem's creation on his Facebook page .
Mikita Naydzionau. Photo: mikita.naydzenau / Facebook
Three years ago, when I ended up in Zhodzina prison, deprived of freedom and usual circumstances, I started looking for a way to somehow preserve myself and turned to poetry, as I had done before in any incomprehensible situation.
My grandmother's birthday, Nadzeya Stsyapanawna's, was approaching. And I wanted to write a congratulatory poem for her. I started writing, but the poem just wouldn't end. And I began to conceive of a large form, my first poem. It was a deep immersion into my family's history, into my childhood with reflections on current circumstances. I believe that if it weren't for prison, I would hardly have written such a thing. "Poetherapy through verses is incompleteness."
When I first publicly read the poem a year ago, I felt incredibly vulnerable and defenseless. I can say this is the best thing I have ever written. This poem will be included in my next book. It was fully published in the latest issue of "Apostraf." And half of the poem is on Bellit.info. I also believe that one day it will be staged as a dramatic work.
To wake at five,
to answer to name and surname.
With a tense soul
to yearn for relatives in thought.
While on the concrete
everyone slept, covered in jackets,
I thought this then:
haven't enough suffered for us?
Was it all in vain
that grandmother perished in the North,
sawing trees
till her hands remembered no frost?
Is it not enough
that mother reshaped her life,
for she became a widow
barely past her thirtieth year?
Neither by bad mood
nor by petty reproach did she betray
how hard it was to raise
us and my sister, yet she raised us.
What is all this for,
if we won't be happy:
endless summer
and a dacha with wild plums?
Are we truly descendants
of unfulfilled zinc boys
and do we bet on happiness,
but do we truly want happiness?
Why do we strive
to explore the Moon's craters,
if we ourselves will end up
for a month behind bars?
We bear children
despite all dangers.
And right after the rains
we immediately await the next ones.
We live in the present
with hope for an eternal better.
And suddenly: "Naydzionau,
we're gathering our things to leave."
And here is another excerpt:
I thought I grew up
in and... out of my parents' home.
And simply like an expression
I stretch with lines and commas.
But it seems to warm me,
that in thoughts I turn homeward.
All the radiators
I counted there with my milk teeth.
There are old windows,
and in spring, seedlings on each of them.
I am younger than my sister
and complain to Mom about trifles.
And Mom will hug me
and tell me tender words,
and with those words
something warm pours onto my cheeks.
She will feel with her whole body,
that these boyish tears
are what she herself wanted
when she was under-cherished.
And something will click,
tear apart like old patches.
Drop by drop with tenderness
the tearful heart will be filled.
I thought I grew up,
that I shook off childhood albums.
Home draws like a warm refuge,
years fly by in decades.
There, first steps
border with first iambs.
Under the high sun
in the garden are tall apple trees.
And July is cast
by rains, and I, who was born,
for tears from letters
to roll down like peas.
And Mom will pick
sweet-sweet peas for me.
And will see me off
on a far, far journey.
Mikita Naydzionau is a Belarusian poet and musician, former frontman of the band Hurma.
Naydzionau was detained on March 25, 2023. He was accused under Article 342 of the Criminal Code, "Organization and preparation of actions that grossly violate public order, or active participation in them." The human rights community of Belarus recognized Naydzionau as a political prisoner.
From late April, he was held in Pre-trial Detention Center No. 8 in Zhodzina. In July, he was transferred from Investigatory Prison No. 8 to Pre-trial Detention Center No. 1 in Minsk.
On July 24, 2023, Judge Maryna Klimchuk of the Leninski District Court of Minsk sentenced Mikita Naydzionau. He was given 3 years of restricted freedom without being sent to an open-type correctional facility ("home chemistry"). After the verdict was announced, Naydzionau was released from custody in the courtroom.
In October 2023, Mikita left Belarus.