Today, on World Poetry Day, the director of the Educational and Scientific Institute of Ukrainian Studies, candidate of philological sciences, assistant professor of the Department of Ukrainian Language Greshchuk Valentyna Vasylivna met with students of the 8th grade of Lyceum No. 22 of the Ivano-Frankivsk City Council. Valentina Vasylivna introduced the eighth-graders to the collection “We will meet where there will be no war…” and told what motivated her to write poetry every day – from the end of February 2022 until today. The author of the collection shared how, with the help of poetic words, she conveys the tragedy of our country since the beginning of the full-scale war, depicts the terrible events that happened and are happening now, describes the heroic exploits of the defenders, depicts the incredible love for the native land and nature, for the native language, for language, which is the most important factor of national identity, self-identification and self-preservation. Faith and hope for a better future can be read in each poem of the collection:
“I will collect all the poems in one bouquet
and I will present the collection to Ukraine,
I drew your portrait, my dear
and she chose yellow and blue paints!
…
I lay all the poems at your feet,
I bow low, low, to the very bottom,
you did everything so that your people won,
after the war we will meet again!
The students willingly heard about the warrior-fellow villager of Valentina Vasylivna – Roman Chervak, to whom she dedicated one of her poems, and whose portrait is depicted on the cover of the collection, about the presentation of the collection, which took place on September 20, 2022, in the Ivano-Frankivsk Regional Universal Scientific Library named after I.Frank and a creative meeting on October 6, 2022 with fans of Valentina Vasylivna’s work in the reading room of the Ivano-Frankivsk MCBS, where the violinist Pavlo Voloshchuk was invited, to whom one of Valentina Vasylivna’s poems is dedicated. All those present had a good opportunity not only to enjoy poetry from the author herself, but also to watch videos with poetic texts and a presentation highlighting the main moments of the creation of the collection. Valentyna Vasylivna emphasized the power of the poetic word and willingly invited students with general secondary education to enter the Prykarpattia National University named after Vasyl Stefanyk, in particular the Faculty of Philology.
The meeting was attended by leading specialists of the Educational and Scientific Institute of Ukrainian Studies, who recited poems by Valentina Vasylivna: Oleksandra Kuzyshyn read the poem “Draw me a sun in a peaceful blue sky”, and Rybchak Solomiya read the poem “How are you there, son of Ukraine?”. Student Kateryna Hupan also poignantly recited poetry “And we are the best Ukrainians in the world.”
Lyceum students sincerely congratulated Valentina Vasylivna on World Poetry Day and took great pleasure in capturing the moments of the meeting in photos. Pupils and teachers thanked Valentina Vasylivna for the visit, poetry reading and expressed their hopes for new meetings.
