Arkadii Dragomoshchenko, Charles Bernstein, Thomas Epstein, Genya Turovskaya, Eugene Ostashevsky and Matvei Yankelevich
Blurring Boundaries: Arkadii Dragomoshchenko in conversation with Charles Bernstein, Thomas Epstein, Genya Turovskaya, Eugene Ostashevsky and Matvei Yankelevich.
Russian poet Arkadii Dragomoshchenko will discuss his work as a poet and prose-writer in the context of late Soviet history and the current post-Soviet situation and new literature. The poet Charles Bernstein and the scholar and translator Thomas Epstein will join the conversation to discuss the connections between Russian and American poetics in the late 20th and early 21st centuries and issues in contemporary Russian literature. The conversation will be moderated by Eugene Ostashevsky and Matvei Yankelevich. Additionally, Dragomoshchenko and his translator Genya Turovskaya will read selections from a forthcoming collection. [This event will be conducted in English.]
About the participants:
Arkadii Dragomoshchenko’s work in English translation includes two books of poetry (Description and Xenia, both translated by Lyn Hejinian and published by Sun & Moon) a novel (Chinese Sun, Ugly Duckling Presse 2005) and a book of prose and essays (Dust, Dalkey Archive, 2009). Born in Potsdam in 1946 and raised in Vinitsa in Ukraine, Dragomoshchenko lives in St. Petersburg where he writes for several cultural journals.
Charles Bernstein is the author of All the Whiskey in Heaven, published by Farrar, Strauss and Giroux in Spring 2010. After many years of teaching in the Poetics Program at SUNY-Buffalo, Bernstein currently holds the Donald T. Regan Chair in the Department of English at the University of Pennsylvania. He is one of the most prominent members of the Language poets and has published more than fifteen books of poetry, five books of critical writing, and several anthologies.
Thomas Epstein is a specialist in contemporary Russian literature. His most recent publications are articles on Russian poets Leonid Aronzon (Wiener Slawistischer Almanakh, #63) and Elena Shvarts (Novoe Literaturnoe Obozrenie, #102) and translations of Aleksandr Skidan, Dmitri Golynko, Sergei Zavyalov (Aufgabe, #8), and of Elena Shvarts (New Arcadia Review, #4). He is a professor of Humanities and Russian Literature at Boston College.
Eugene Ostashevsky is the author of two books poetry, The Life and Opinions of DJ Spinoza and Iterature (both from Ugly Duckling Presse). He is the editor and co-translator of OBERIU: An Anthology of Russian Absurdism (Northwestern Univ. Press) and of Dmitry Golynko’s As It Turned Out (UDP). His work has appeared in Best American Poetry, and in many magazines including Jubilat, Boston Review, and Fence. He teaches at New York University.
Genya Turovskaya is the co-translator of two books of contemporary Russian poetry, both from Ugly Duckling Presse: Red Shifting by Aleksandr Skidan, and The Russian Version by Elena Fanailova, which won the Best Translated Book Award for poetry. Her work has appeared in Chicago Review, Conjunctions, Aufgabe, Octopus, and other magazines. She is the author of two chapbooks of poetry: Calendar (UDP) and The Tides (Octopus).
Matvei Yankelevich is the author of Boris by the Sea (Octopus Books) and translator of Today I Wrote Nothing: The Selected Writings of Daniil Kharms (Overlook). He edited the Contemporary Russian Poetry and Poetics issue of Aufgabe (No. 8, 2009). He teaches at Columbia University School of the Arts (Writing Division) and is the editor of the Eastern European Poets Series for Ugly Duckling Presse.
This event is sponsored by the Creative Writing Program at Columbia University’s School of the Arts, The Columbia Department of English and Comparative Literature, the Poetry Society of America, Ugly Duckling Presse, and Dalkey Archive Press. Books will be available for sale and signing. Refreshments will be served.