When: Monday, October 15, 2012 at 7pm
Where: New York Public Library, Mid-Manhattan Branch, The Corner Room, 40th St. & 5th Avenue, (diagonally across from the main building) NYC
Cost: Free
Description: Carrying forward Russia’s rich poetic tradition, acclaimed rising poets read from their work, discuss the variety and richness of contemporary Russian verse, and consider their art and its role in the context of Russia’s volatile political and social reality. Reading alongside them will be key US poets whose work, in breadth of vision and acclaim, both relates to and differs from that of the Russian poets in interesting ways. To be moderated by David Lehman, one of the foremost editors, literary critics, poets, and anthologists of contemporary American literature. This event is for the general English-speaking public, readings will be done in both English and Russian.
Featuring:
Tina Chang, born in 1969 in Oklahoma, was raised in New York and teaches poetry at Sarah Lawrence College. She was elected as Poet Laureate of Brooklyn in 2010 and has received awards from Academy of American Poets, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and Poets & Writers.
Heather Christle was born in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, in 1980. She is the author of three poetry collections: What Is Amazing, The Difficult Farm, and The Trees The Trees, which won the 2012 Believer Poetry Award. She teaches poetry at Sarah Lawrence College, serves as Web Editor for jubilat, and coordinates lectures for the Royal Society of Hadley for Improving Natural Knowledge at Flying Object, in western Massachusetts, where she lives.
Dina Gatina was born in 1981 in the town of Engels in the Russian provinces. She completed her degree at the Saratov Arts School and then graduated from the Moscow Institute of Contemporary Art. She lives in St, Petersburg and works as an artist, illustrator and poet. In 2001 she was shortlisted for the Debut Prize with her poetry and in 2002 she won the prize in the “short prose” category.
Alla Gorbunova was born in 1985 on Vasilievsky Island in St. Petersburg; she graduated from the Philosophy Department of St. Petersburg University in 2008, majoring in social philosophy and the philosophy of history. Gorbunova now works as a translator, reviewer, and journalist, and teaches philosophy at the St. Petersburg Polytechnic University. She won the Debut Prize for her poetry in 2005, and has since published two collections of poetry, the latest of which was short-listed in 2011 for the Andrei Belyi Prize.
Lev Oborin is a highly influential young poet and critic. Born in 1987 in Moscow, he graduated from the Russian State University for the Humanities with a degree in philology. He is currently a graduate student there, studying Russian-British cultural ties. He is one of the creators of a web site dedicated to experimental poetry and a guitarist in an indie rock band.
Matthew Yeager's poems have appeared in NANOfiction, Sixthfinch, Bat City Review, Supermachine, Gulf Coast, and others, as well as Best American Poetry 2005 and Best American Poetry 2010. His short film "A Big Ball of Foil in a Small NY Apartment" was an official selection at thirteen film festivals in 2009-2010, picking up three awards. Other distinctions include the 2009 Barthelme Prize in Short Prose and two MacDowell fellowships. He’s been working the last two years on developing and writing a serial television drama tentatively called Savages of the Ohio, a true historical drama about Philadelphia merchant adventurers in the 1760s. His work is widely taught. The son of a coalminer’s daughter, he graduated high school in Cincinnati, OH in 1998 and has lived in New York City since 2002.
Moderator:
David Lehman will moderate the evening. One of the foremost editors, literary critics, and anthologists of contemporary American literature, David Lehman is also one of its most accomplished poets. Born in New York City in 1948, Lehman earned a PhD from Columbia University and attended the University of Cambridge as a Kellett Fellow. He is the author of numerous collections of poetry and creator of The Best American Poetry series in 1988 and the editor of The Oxford Book of American Poetry. Lehman’s numerous honors and awards include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Ingram Merrill Foundation, and awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Writer’s Award. On faculty at both the New School and New York University, he lives in New York City.
