Dear readers,
I’m delighted to share with you the 2025 issue of DoubleSpeak, originally curated by Katie Rozsypalek and the editorial staff—Daria Knurenko, Hannah Nieuwveld, Ava Ye, Joecelyn Curreri, and Elias Ziyadeh.
This year's edition captures the multitude of worlds our translations inhabit, as the poems included here have been translated by high school students in Poland, award-winning Dutch novelists, and Peruvian migrant-activists. The translated world encompasses riveting languages: Spanish, Russian, French, Dutch, Mandarin, and—for the very first time in the journal’s history—Ukrainian.
Ukrainian’s addition to our index of languages was made possible by Daria (Dasha) Knurenko, who translated three brilliant poems for this issue—two written by the great twentieth-century poet of resistance Vasyl Stus, and the third poem by the sharply contemporary Yuriy Izdryk. I’m particularly struck by one of the Stus poems,“The Sea—A Black Knot of Sadness,” which breathes in nature, reminding humans of the privilege of witnessing its anomaly. Dasha grew up in Northwestern Ukraine and—having come to Penn for her undergraduate degree—joined DoubleSpeak’s staff in her first year here. She now takes the helm as our Editor-in-Chief.
Please take a moment with this issue to read Dasha’s musing, “Language as Empire,” which explores the author’s relationship with language—especially Russian and Ukrainian through her experience as a teenager during the Russian-Ukrainian war. I continue to think about these lines, toward the end of the musing: “But everything changes when you hear a rocket fly past your head. That sound—a sound between a word and a language—is one everyone understands. You don’t need to speak it.” Dasha explores language tactically, using the noise of inanimate objects for the things language cannot say, and navigating the heaviness of carrying both Russian and Ukrainian during a time of turbulence.
I only this year got the opportunity to join DoubleSpeak, and through it I have been exposed to poetry I wouldn’t have otherwise known. I’m in my final semester of university, readying myself to graduate with a chemistry degree and a creative writing minor. I’m unsure of the upcoming years—perhaps I’ll practice environmental law in the Northeast, or perhaps I'll return to the chemistry labs where I began my freshman year, or perhaps I'll write about it all. With the words in this issue, I have already begun to travel across time and between countries.
I’m grateful to the DoubleSpeak team for allowing me to take part in this project, and to our translators, for crossing language barriers to permit others to enjoy poetry. Readers, I hope these poems transport you across time and between countries, just as they once did for me.
Sincerely,
Carine Medellus
Editor