Sponsored by the Department of Slavic Languages & Literatures and the Program in Russian and Eurasian Studies
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

Tuesday, March 13 at 6 PM
(245 East Pyne)

WHAT’S PAST IS FUTURISM

Matvei Yankelevich and Eugene Ostashevsky

Read their Poetry and Translations of the Russian Avant-Garde

(Readings will be in English)

Matvei Yankelevich is the author of Boris by the Sea (Octopus Books, 2009) and Alpha Donut (forthcoming from United Artists Books in 2012), and several poetry chapbooks, most recently Bending at the Elbow (Minutes Books, 2011). He edited and translated Today I Wrote Nothing: The Selected Writings of Daniil Kharms (Ardis/Overlook). His translations from Russian have appeared in several anthologies and in many magazines including Harpers, New American Writing, The New Yorker, and Poetry. Matvei is one of the founding editors of Ugly Duckling Presse, a Brooklyn-based nonprofit publisher that specializes in poetry and translation. He teaches at Hunter College and at the Milton Avery School of the Arts at Bard College.

Eugene Ostashevsky is a Russian-American poet and translator based in New York. His poetry collections include The Life and Opinions of DJ Spnoza and Iterature, both published by Ugly Duckling Presse. He is also the editor and main translator of OBERIU: An Anthology of Russian Absurdism, which includes work by Daniil Kharms, Alexander Vvedensky, and other underground writers from 1930s Leningrad, published by Northwestern.