After graduating from Kyiv State University in 1957, Vasyl Symonenko worked as a journalist at several newspapers in Cherkasy Oblast.
His debut book of poems "Тиша і грім / Tysha i hrim" ("Silence and thunder") was published in 1962 and made the talent of Symonenko apparent amongst the young poets.
[2] During his last year Vasyl Symonenko wrote his second book – "Земне тяжіння / Zemne tyazhinnya" ("Earth’s gravity"), verses from which were quoted, written out (adding what the Soviet censorship had omitted), learned off by heart and compared with the poetry of Taras Shevchenko.
[1] In 1962, Symonenko together with his friends A. Horska and Les Tanyuk, uncovered the burial places of NKVD repressions in Bykivnia, Lukianivskyi and Vasyslkivskyi cemeteries near Kyiv.
The fullest collection of Symonenko's works was published abroad, under the title "Берег чекань" ("Shore of anticipation") in Munich (1963).