Virlana Tkacz and Wanda Phipps started translating Natalka Bilotserkivets's work in 1991 when Yara Arts Group performed a bilingual version of her poem “May” for the event "Fiver Years After," a commemoration of the Chornobyl nuclear accident, presented at the Ukrainian Institute of America in New York. The following winter Virlana used Bilotserkivets's “May” as the core text in Yara's theatre piece "Explosions" presented at La MaMa Experimental Theatre in New York. Tkacz and Phipps were awarded the Poetry Translation Prize by Agni Journal for their translation. Agni also published the poem in 1991.
