Olha Matso has performed at poetry readings and spoken word events at the Winding Stair Bookshop and Vicar St. (as part of the Red Cross/Ukrainian Action Ireland event in 2022) and others throughout Ireland.
She’s created poetry videos on her youtube channel and was recently commissioned by artist Varvara Shavrova for a poetry reading at the launching of an installation at the Photo Museum Ireland. Olha is studying performing arts, acting for stage and screen, and she often blends poetry with movement, dance and performance.
The ‘Executed Renaissance’, as Olha explains, was an artistic movement violently repressed by the Stalinist regime. These Ukrainian poets, writers, and artists of the 1920s and early 1930s founded many literary organisations, and created art as they put it: “on the brink of the possible”. Hundreds of them were deported, imprisoned or shot.
‘Absurdity – and magical realism – it’s more realistic than real life. It comes from the real life. People just live their lives and in this domestic style, they forget about that magic and poetry. It comes to us to remind that ok, you live in this world, in a real world, but it’s a magical world.’
Follow her @olhamatso where she posts more about her performances and her poetry and watch more of her poetry videos.
Iya Kiva – Ukrainian poet listen here // Previous episode – Suad Aldarra
Olha Matso Transcript:
Bairbre Flood: Hi, and welcome to Wander with me Bairbre Flood, with thanks to the Arts Council of Ireland for their funding support.
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Olha Matso: I’m trying to learn more about Ireland and I’m thinking something about mythology and how it would be if Ukrainian Mavka – it’s actually a spirit – how it would be if Ukrainian Mavka could meet with, like, an Irish fairy.
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Bairbre Flood: Olha has performed at poetry readings and spoken word events at the Winding Stair Bookshop and Vicar St. – as part of the Red Cross/Ukrainian Action Ireland event in 2022 – and others throughout Ireland.
She’s created poetry videos on her Youtube channel and was recently commissioned by artist Varvara Shavrova for a poetry reading at the launching of an installation at the Photo Museum Ireland.
Olha is studying performing arts, acting for stage and screen, and she often blends poetry with movement, dance and performance – and we started off by talking about this – this is Olha Matso:
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Olha Matso: Yeah, you know, like, I’m a poet. I really like poetry, but on the stage, I also like doing something like this. Without words, just movements, or dancing, or anything, like, it’s energy, it’s not always words, and poetry sometimes is not only in the words, but in the body movement, in the energy, the way you look.
For me, like, now, 2024, it’s like 10 years since the moment when I started my poetry performances. And for me, like, it’s important to say that words because like when it’s published, it’s one thing. It’s also important. But when it’s on the stage, when it’s live, it’s energy. It’s a magic for me. It’s just a magic.
Bairbre Flood: Cool. Yeah. And were you influenced by people like either writers in Ukraine or performers or musicians or what influenced your performance art and your poetry?
Olha Matso: One of the most important influences now for me is Ukrainian writer and playwright and theater maker and director from the last century Les Kurbas.
It’s one of the activists of our executed renaissance, yeah, and also other poets from this group of writers of the 1920s and early 1930s of the last century.
Bairbre Flood: And are any of them translated into English? Can people go on?
Olha Matso: Can, but I think not so many translations, but yes, it is something on internet, yes.
Bairbre Flood: What was the name again, just so I can I can just have a look as well.
Olha Matso: Les Kurbas is a theatre maker, director, playwright, and they called the Executed Renaissance. There are many artists, like, near to a hundred Nicola Kulish, playwright, and other poets and prose writers, there are just many. They lived in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.
Bairbre Flood: Why were they called Executed Renaissance?
Olha Matso: Because they were tortured and killed by Soviet agents, by Stalin.
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Bairbre Flood: So just if – like me – you didn’t know anything about the ‘Executed Renaissance’, this movement as Olha explained there was an artistic movement violently repressed by the Stalinist regime.
These Ukrainian poets, writers, and artists of the 1920s and early 1930s founded many literary organisations, and created art as they put it, quote “on the brink of the possible”.
Hundreds of them were deported, imprisoned or shot.
The term the “Executed Renaissance” was first proposed in 1959 by Jerzy Giedroyc. It became the title of the anthology and the name of this movement.
There isn’t a huge amount of English translations – but a publisher in the UK called Kalyna Language Press has published some – I’ll put them in the shownotes – and you can check them out.
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Olha Matso: But physically, you know, I, I’m here in Ireland, but mentally I’m still in Ukraine.
I never could imagine that when I was reading Irish plays in Ukraine, I never could imagine that I would end up one day in Ireland. I’ve never been so far from home. Yes, but of course Ireland is an amazing country with friendly, peaceful people with beautiful nature. And sometimes it actually reminds me.
My homeland because my hometown also has hills, and I always feel safe when there are hills just around me. I just need to see, like, mountains or hills somewhere, and then I want just to go higher and higher. I like hiking. But I just really feel safe when I see. Because I grew up in a beautiful town on the border with Slovakia.
It’s a beautiful region, Transcarpathia, in the western part of Ukraine. And Transcarpathia mostly consists of mountains, like 80 percent, but in my town there are hills, like if you want to go to the mountains it’s you need to go higher, but in town you also always see these hills, like, it’s just like you feel safe when you’re near the hills.
Bairbre Flood: Nice. Do you see much similarity between the mythology of Ukraine and in Ireland?
Olha Matso: Yes, I’m trying to, to see something to learn more about Ireland and I’m thinking something about mythology and how it would be if Ukrainian Mavka, it’s actually a spirit how it would be if Ukrainian Mavka could meet with, like, an Irish fairy.
You know, like, I think in this creative way, like, how cool could it be?
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Olha Matso: There was an evening I had three candles. I had three candles. I held three candles. I had three candles and nothing more. I saw them burning. I saw night passing. There was a morning I went to the water. I met you from the waves. Who brought you to me? There was a day I carried a candlestick. The first candle was burning.
You were silent and then disappeared. My second candle lit something in an instant. For the third one, you told me you saw me three times. There was an evening we had three candles. We had three candles. We held three candles, three candles for two of us, and that’s it. We saw in the mirrors one face. What else is waiting for us?
Nobody would even know. The star fell down from the sky. Heat had been falling as a sign. There were nights like this, when we had three worlds. In the first, all is fire, please go on shining. In the second, all is water, still carrying us. In the third, we are, and we guessed it all. In the third, we are, and we guessed it all.
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Olha Matso: This poem was inspired by the poem pictures place of the Ukrainian Carpathian Mountains, and it is based on the Ukrainian holiday of Epiphany. It’s about the magic of life, love, of course, about moments when a miracle is created out of nothing during the magical time of the holiday about how the real world is created.
And merges with the imaginary world. Yeah, it’s actually, it’s actually a song. It’s written originally in Ukrainian language, but with some dialect words because I’m from a place from Transcarpathia and Carpathian mountains where we have many different dialects. And I like to sometimes use some words, like I don’t write just in dialect, but I use some words Ukrainian language with, combined with dialects.
Bairbre Flood: Cool. And do you, now, do you always write in, like, do you ever write in English first? Or do you always write in Ukrainian first and then translate? Or how do you, how are you finding that?
Olha Matso: I write something in English, but I’m trying to edit that and to improve my English. It’s, for me, it’s like more drafts..
Bairbre Flood: Yeah, yeah. It’s harder. But do you find it’s different when you, when you write in English, it obviously makes you think differently?
Olha Matso: Yes. And I like to play with the language. I was doing something like this in Ukrainian and now, yeah. When I’m trying to improve my English it’s interesting to play with the language.
It’s not like that when you translate because I have some poems translated from Ukrainian to English. It’s different when you write in English. It’s more interesting to write in a new language even if you don’t really speak when you just learn. Yeah. I’m gonna read that piece that was written in English.
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Lesson of war. Close the sky over Ukraine. Please close the sky. Only angels are allowed to fly it. over this land. In God we trust. Kyiv, not Kiev, is the capital of Ukraine. The weather is fine. The sun is shining brightly. Stop the clouds of war. Who is on duty today? Please close the sky over Ukraine. Clean the blackboard from blood.
We are ready to ride the ninth of any day of March, April, May 2022. Classwork, super work, hard work. The victory of Ukraine in the war, not conflict against the Russian occupation. Is there anybody in heaven? Are you a god? Are you NATO? The North Atlantic Treaty Organization? Somebody close the sky over Ukraine.
Yes, it’s in the center of Europe. It’s spring now. All the angels are already flown with birds. We have feathers of freedom. We have wings of liberty. Just close the sky. God bless.
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That’s actually not really my style of poetry. It’s written in English in March 2022 when we were hoping that somebody could close the sky over Ukraine and help us.
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Today the sun forgot what to do, to rise or to set. It just hovered between the earth and sky, between yesterday and tomorrow, between you and me. The moon was surprised, looking at it from the side, thinking for a long time what to do, was hesitating, and then It rose instead of the sun, and no one knows anymore whether it’s morning or evening, yesterday or tomorrow, whether the sun is shining or the moon, are we on earth or in heaven.
Is this us or not? Is this us or not?
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I was just written in the one moment of something, like, it just came to me. Usually I need more time to read a poem, to write a poem, like, I can have an idea, but then like a draft, but then I need time to edit and to make it perfect. And this just came to me, like, just, just came in one moment, my shortest poem ever.
And it’s just like about something that is between two worlds, between real and imaginary world.
Bairbre Flood: Yeah. There is something that theme in your work though, I feel like the other worldly kind of dimension.
Olha Matso: Yeah.
Bairbre Flood: Or magical thinking or magical realism.
Olha Matso: Yeah, that’s what I like. Magical realism. Absurdity.
Bairbre Flood: Why do you like that?
Why, why is that interesting for you?
Olha Matso: Because absurdity – and magical realism – it’s more realistic than real life. It comes from the real life. People just live their lives and in this, like, domestic style, they forget about that magic and poetry. It comes to us to remind that ok, you live in this world in, in a real world, but it’s a magical world.
Bairbre Flood: Yeah. For sure. And we think like we understand so much about it and about ourselves. Yeah.
Olha Matso: Yeah. But like, you know, we are very grounded. And sometimes, like, we need to think about the nature, because the magic comes from there. Comes from there.
Bairbre Flood: Yeah, yeah. You need to not just be so earthbound.
Yeah, yeah. Like, feet in the mud. Yeah.
Olha Matso: Yeah. To dream and to think that dreams come true. And just like it’s life it’s real and magical at the same time.
Bairbre Flood: Yeah, yeah. And I think it’s important as well because it gives us a bit more hope because when you look around the world, what’s happening in Ukraine and what’s happening in so many places in the world.
And if you, if you think that maybe there’s some way beyond reason or beyond what the reality is that, that hopefully it would change or that there’s a possibility of, of things changing.
Would you like to be a full time artist? Is that your goal? Is that what you’d like to do full time?
Olha Matso: Yeah, 24 hours. I would like to, to write poetry and to perform and to create. Performances like more theater and to combine everything and poetry poetry videos. Actually, we made in collaboration with Ukrainian based in Ireland filmmaker.
We made a poetry film for the poem of three candles. It will be on my YouTube soon. It’s coming soon and I would like to. to make more films when I have time.
Bairbre Flood: Oh, I look forward to seeing that. That’s really cool. More poetry films and more. You have a TikTok channel as well, do you?
Olha Matso: I have, but like, I’m not really very active.
I would like to have more content, like more poetry videos to post. First I need to create something and then.
Bairbre Flood: Slowly, like you get there and like, but people can check it out anyway. Again, I’ll put a link to it with the show notes and people can follow and be ready for when they’re all uploaded. Cool.
Is there anything you wanted to add? Is there anything we didn’t talk about that you wanted to add about? I don’t know.
Olha Matso: I’m very grateful to Ireland and Irish people for everything they do for Ukrainians and for all the supports that we have. But, you know, I have two lives. I’m still, like, I spend a lot of time online, on social media, reading news from Ukraine and from friends who are in Ukraine.
I have two lives, one life is in Ukraine and one is here in Ireland.
But yes, Ireland is an amazing country. And I would just say about poetry that poetry says more than I can say. And it’s not about the words – it’s about something between those words. It’s more visual imagery.
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Bairbre Flood: Well I’ll let you go and I’ll talk to you again and we’ll keep in contact.
Olha Matso: Thank you so much and I’ll talk to you soon. Bye.
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Bairbre Flood: A huge thank you to Olha Matso for sharing her work with us today.
I’ve put a link in the shownotes to her Youtube and her Tiktok channel
And you can also follow her – @olhamatso – where she posts more about her performances and her poetry.
Also before I go, just to let ye know we’ll be having a live event in The Laneway Gallery, Shandon St, Cork on the 20th of July.
We’ll have performances, spoken word and music, some of the poetry from this podcast, along with visuals from the fantastic artist Silvio Severino –
Silvio is an amazing artist. I love his work, gorgeous blend of collage, digital art, it’s really beautiful. If you’ve been to any of the ‘Not How, When’ club nights in the Pav you’d have seen some of his work.
I’ll have more details in the next few weeks, so keep an eye on @bairbreflood – for updates.
A massive thanks to the Arts Council of Ireland for all their support with this event and this podcast, their funding is much appreciated.
Thank you so much for listening and for all your support. And see ye all again next episode. From me, Bairbre Flood, bye for now.
