"There is no one definition of what it is to be Ukrainian,"; writes poet Elizabeth Bachinsky in her multi-faceted God of Missed Connections (Nightwood $17.95). "It's not a new story, nor an unknown one, but there are over one million persons who claim Ukrainian heritage living in Canada today.";

Suspecting many of her generation don't know historical truths pertaining to Ukrainians in both the Old Country and life in Canada, Bachinsky has shared her exploratory self-education in her third collection of poems. Possibly to avoid typecasting as an ethnic writer, there is no clear indication of the subject matter in the packaging of the book.

Bachinsky is unafraid to divulge her impressionable nature as a seeker of truth, rather than a professor of it. Many poems are strikingly original, candid; others can be coy, opaque. At her best, Bachinsky is a shining example of how poetry can be more uplifting and revelatory than prose. Even a simple SkyTrain ride can be a passport to entering history.

'86

I was ten years old the year Chernobyl burned,
the same year that Expo '86
came to Vancouver and the city changed forever.
For I will always think of China, the China pavilion
to be exact, each time these years later I pass
the China Gate at Dr. Sun Yat-Sen's Classical
Chinese Gardens. We are moving then, all of us,
from one place to another. Now, I'm haunted
by the SkyTrain doors' perfect open fifth
then the smooth electronic contralto programmed
to reassure as one rides the Expo Line to Waterfront
Station. The line stretches out behind us: concrete
contrails left over from '86. Eighty-six,
the year Chernobyl burned hot as the centre
of the earth, the sun, and men hurried in.

978-0-88971-226-3

[BCBW 2009]