A Primal Scream of Love

Chytomo Book of the Month

Sitting here in America on 07 November 2024, the world is on my mind.

Again and again, I have seen and processed the harm caused by love-starved humans who believe the whispered lies about an “enemy” from the greedy lips of someone they want to like them. This becomes especially lethal when that listener also operates primarily from a sense of self.

Meaning, there are few things more powerful than a person craving love. But for whom is the difference: For themself or for those they already touch? Or for true love – a connection across this planet, the sort of love that warms in exchanging a smile with a stranger you’ll never see again.

I crave that second kind of love. As I have as I’ve spent the last many hours adrift. In the waves. Not away from anchors, but without the ability to steady. Reaching for those I could, and yearning, silently but without apology, for those I could not.

Then, today, I saw that Chytomo has featured The Factory by Ihor Mysiak, translated by Yevheniia Dubrova and Hanna Leliv as their Book of the Month. And the primal scream inside me just raised its hand. A tension I didn’t know how to resolve.

Now I know how to let it out.

Let’s talk about Love.

I am going to use the term “crazy” understanding that it can be hurtful. Yet, I am a mentally disabled, neurodivergent person who has suffered from both anxiety and complex post-traumatic stress disorders since I was very, very young, and have lived a life of being warned, even scolded, not to be crazy. Not to be weird. Not to be too much. Not to make people uncomfortable.

In almost all cases, what these terms meant were:

  • To show vulnerability.
  • To show emotion.
  • To express love.

In other words, to be authentic.

I’ve talked in other places about oppression (and will continue to do so) but oppression is really just greed. Some people want more than others. This requires false hierarchies, which requires a dampening of any empathy or expression that might lead to the dissolution of those falsely drawn lines.

So – waves hands around for this time – authenticity, the pure acceptance and expression of love for our true self and that of others, is the antithesis of oppression.

And no, that doesn’t mean being yourself or telling your stories prevents oppression on its own. It means that the societal normalization of authenticity does, eventually, do that, because it fosters empathy and communication while debunking the false rules manufactured to hold people down. And we have more power, so much more power now to do that, in a world that’s connected. They know that. So, so must we.

Now, what does this have to do with a Book of the Month?

Back to crazy. Марина (Maryna), the wife of the late author Ihor Mysiak (he was killed at age 29 by Russia), and I connected online. We don’t speak each other’s languages, so we were cautious regarding translations by “the robots” as I call them. Because of the need for directness, I’ve tried to speak directly and without idioms, and so it came about that Maryna said that she can see that I am crazy, and that Ihor was crazy too. Good crazy.

I was … thrilled to hear this, because I had sensed it. I think it was why I connected so much to this author, this poet, this story. If I am too much? Ihor was very much too much.

I think poets tend to be. And all my life, I’ve also been a poet. I’ve just not shared those poems. That, soon, will change.

As for Ihor, the writing of his novel is subtle. Clever. He weaves concepts of joy and family and purpose through this quirky tale of a dilapidated factory.

I am in love with his work. His words. His vision he saw in them. His radiance and pure belief in people. In Love.

It’s why I adore this novel so deeply. It is many things. It is highly a metaphor for military life, through the lens of a volunteer defending one’s home. But it is an absolute reflection on life, death, happiness, joy, authority, and rebellion.

Putting all this eloquently is this review by Anastasia Herasymova of Chytomo.

I love this line:

“The English translation of The Factory, accomplished by translators Yevheniia Dubrova and Hanna Leliv and published by Atthis Arts with the support of the Ukrainian Book Institute, is not just a literary work. It is a tribute to Mysiak, and a reminder that, although creative work does immortalize its author, it does not reduce the pain and bitterness of losing them.”

Yes, joy. Yes, pain. Our grappling between them, between what we can’t change and what we could.

Ihor himself was saying this within the pages of The Factory. It is an exploration of the layers that make us alive, even in the presence of death, without toxicity: positive or negative.

That he wrote such an exploration, with hope and reflection, and then saw his friend Dage killed in the siege of Azovstal (yes, a factory) and then was killed himself, tries to break my heart, but it cannot. It wounds it, bleeds it, pulls it, weights it, lifts it, fuels it. Because Ihor was crazy. And I am crazy. Good crazy.

And I will scream for every day I have left alive, the same scream I know that he would join in with me – that we believe in Love. We believe in people. We believe in humanity. In authenticity. We will not hide our poetry. We will not hide our Love.

We will fight for Love, this time and every time. Whatever the consequence.

I do not have a conclusion for you. I am mindful of safety and the difference in each of our situations. I do have that conclusion for me. And I will scream it again, and again. Love.

Love. Love. Love.

Messy love. Fierce love. Love we might survive, and might not.

But our love. Our connection. Our world.

This is what I will do – this is what our press, Atthis Arts, will continue to do.

Both of our book releases this month deal with these themes of grief and life, at a time I think many of us will need these reflections. And both from very different cultural perspectives, both through the genre-blending art of the fantastic, and neither through the eyes of North American or Western European fantasy. These books found me when I needed them.

Perhaps you will need them too. I hope that you enjoy them.

With my love – my deep, unapologetic love –
Emily.
07 November 2024
Ferndale, Michigan.

Here is what we have to offer you this November. I hope you will give these stories and creations a look. And if you appreciate what our press is doing, please follow us where you follow things, and please let people know!

November 2024 – Events

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