WAR IN UKRAINE | DISPATCH
From 21st-century trenches, Ukraine’s war poets write acclaimed verse for their times
Yaryna Chornohuz, 27, composes poetry while working as a medic on the front line
By day, Yaryna Chornohuz is a Marine paramedic on Ukraine’s eastern front line, where artillery duels have been rumbling with Russian proxy forces since 2014. For sixteen months, even before the full-scale Russian invasion, she has treated shrapnel wounds and arterial bleeding, severed limbs and brain injuries. She sleeps with her unit in an earth trench, or in the remains of broken and abandoned villages. There, on the screen of her mobile phone, with the sound of artillery in the background, she writes poetry.
Her poems are about the loss of friends, the loneliness of being a soldier and the pressure on a woman in fighting units dominated by men. Her intense, introverted verse has won acclaim — her second collection will be published in
