New York Group of Poets

The New York Group of Poets (also: The New York Group of Ukrainian Poets, or The New York Group; Ukrainian: Нью-Йоркська Група; N'iu-Iorks'ka hrupa) is a group of Ukrainian émigré modernist poets (mostly, but also included artists) that originated in New York City in the mid-1950s, imbuing the postwar Ukrainian émigré literary milieu with avant-garde spirit and fresh poetic forms. The poets eagerly experimented and embraced such fashionable at the time artistic and philosophical trends as surrealism and existentialism. While the label "New York Group" commonly refers to seven founding members, namely Bohdan Boychuk, Yuriy Tarnawsky, Bohdan Rubchak, Zhenia Vasylkivska, Emma Andijewska, Patrytsiia Kylyna (a pen name of Patricia Nell Warren), and Vira Vovk, it also includes five poets who joined the original contingent a decade or even more than a decade later: George Kolomyiets, Oleh Kowerko, Marco Carynnyk, Roman Babowal, and Maria Rewakowicz. These latter poets betray the same inclination toward formal experimentation as well as display continuity in thematic preferences.

The New York Group's most active period spans approximately fifteen years, from the mid-1950s through the early 1970s and coincides with the publication of its annual poetry almanac Novi poezii (New Poetry). In 1990 Boychuk and Rewakowicz, in cooperation with the Writers' Union of Ukraine, founded a literary magazine Svito-vyd in Kyiv, which was published until 1999. The most iconic thematic innovations introduced by the New York Group comprise the utilization of Spanish and/or Latin American material as well as the incorporation of a play element, urban motifs, and erotica.

The phenomenon of the New York Group provides an interesting study for exploring cultural and aesthetic ramifications of exile. Having settled mostly in the United States, the poets welcomed their exilic condition and nurtured their link with their homeland via poetry written in the mother tongue. This was their way of paying tribute to the poetic tradition of their ethnic kin, while incorporating formal and thematic innovations of the Western world. In fact, some critics drew parallels between the poets of the New York Group and the poets of the Beat Generation, although, arguably, the New York Group displays more affinity with the European modernist tradition than with the American post-World War II literary movement.

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