Double Bill: Sasha Dugdale and Oksana Maksymchuk

Contemporary poetry can challenge, explore uncomfortable truths, and bear witness to unimaginable experiences. In Sasha Dugdale’s new collection, The Strongbox, recent history and Greek mythology meet. Her varied cast of characters are abducted to foreign lands, travel through war zones, and are haunted by conflicts. Oksana Maksymchuk’s Still City reflects life in the wake of extreme and unpredictable violence. Beginning as a poetic journal kept from her hometime in Ukraine, 2021-22, it chronicles events as the poet, her family and community prepare for airstrikes, as well as nuclear, chemical and biological warfare. As part of Push the Boat Out in 2024, Sasha and Oksana discussed what it was to write poetry in times of conflict. The event was chaired by Alice Eaves through the ConVERSE Emerging Chairs Programme with the University of Edinburgh.