On Sunday, March 17, 2019, at 6 PM, at the Russian Samovar (256 West 52nd Street, NYC)
Intercultural Poetry
proudly presents
Ruth Padel
David Lehman
Andrey Gritsman
&
Vladimir Mayakovsky, the yellow-vested champion of Russian modernism
Ruth Padel (above left), professor of poetry at King’s College London, and fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, is the author of Darwin – A Life in Poems (Knopf), a verse biography of her great (to the third degree) grandfather, Charles Darwin. Her other books include On Migration (Counterpoint Press) and Emerald (Chatto & Windus, Random House). Her rendering of a long passage from Pushkin's “Eugene Onegin” will be a highlight of the evening. This is a rare opportunity to meet this distinguished English poet, who is in New York City briefly, working on a fascinating project about which she may choose to reveal some details while the opening four notes of Beethoven’s Fifth are played.
David Lehman (above center) will read his translations of the great Vladimir Mayakovsky’s “Brooklyn Bridge” and excerpts from “The Cloud in Trousers.”
Andrey Gritsman (above right), organizer and host of the series, is a poet and editor, born in Russia and resident in Manhattan. Like Zhivago he is a medical doctor as well as a poet. He is the author of Live Landscape and Long Fall, is an authority on Russian modernist poetry, and has translated Mandelstam as well as Mayakovsky. He will read Mayakovsky in the original as well as several of his own poems and translations.
Intercultural Poetry is a vital organization that reflects the growing awareness of elective affinities between the foremost American and Russian poets.
The Russian Samovar Restaurant and Piano Bar, a legendary locale, was established by Mikhail Baryshnikov, Joseph Brodsky, and Roman Kaplan in 1986. The Russian Samovar is located on West 52nd Street, aka “Swing Street,” famous for jazz bars and the dive in which Auden wrote “September 1, 1939.” The Samovar offers a world-class selection of flavored vodkas as well as poetry and song expressive of the American and Russian sensibilities.
Free
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