My review in Jacket2 of Russian Absurd by Daniil Kharms

The Author and Authority: Daniil Kharms's Russian Absurd translated by Alexander Cigale

HOWL LAUNCH 1/17 PHOTO ALBUM

Thanks to everyone who came, and to readers Alex Cigale, Rachel Hadas, Patricia Spears Jones, Dean Kostos, Dmitri Reyes, Michael T. Young, and Alice Sieve.
HOWL Launch Photos!

HOWL LAUNCH EVENT 1/17!

New at HOWL (Humanities Opposition World League)

See the HOWL (Humanities Opposition World League) blog for poetry by Rachel Hadas and Annie Finch, performance videos of Anne Waldman, a new translation of Anna Akhmatova's Requiem by Alexander Cigale, and an address to El Dorado by Jonathan Penton! CLICK TO READ HERE! 

Patient Women Launch Party 9/8 Featured in the Village Voice!

Delighted that our upcoming launch for Patient Women is featured in the Village Voice! You are all coming, right?
VILLAGE VOICE COVERAGE OF LARISSA'S LAUNCH PARTY

Save the date! The NYC Patient Women launch party 9/8

Friends, save the date! The NYC launch party will happen Tuesday, Sept. 8 at 7:00 pm at Uncle Vanya's, 315 W 54. Readings by Alexander Cigale, Steve Dalachinsky, Bonny Finberg, Patricia Spears Jones, Ron Kolm, Irina Mashinski, Yuko Otomo, Audrey Roth, Thaddeus Rutkowski, yours truly, and other special guests. More details as I get them.This event is sponsored by the Russian American Cultural Center, so it will be a blast. I absolutely hope to see every single one of you there!

Patient Women

AWP Panels - please join me in Minneapolis!

I am pleased to be on two exciting panels at the AWP Conference at the Minneapolis Convention Center. Please be sure to join us!


Daughters of Baba Yaga: The Eastern European Woman Poet in the United States

Number: R270

Moderator: Larissa Shmailo

With Katia Kapovich, Irina Mashinski, Gloria Mindock, Annie Pluto

Date/Time: Thursday, April 9, 4:30 to 5:45 pm

Room 205 C&D Level 2




From Pushkin to Pussy Riot: Poetics and Politics of Translating Russian Poetry

Number: S212

Moderator: Phil Metres

With Larissa Shmailo, Alex Cigale, Matvei Yankelevich

Date/Time: Saturday,  April 11, 1:30 to 2:45pm

Room 205 C&D, Level 2

Victory over the Sun, Russian Futurism and Silver Age Poetry Wed 3/11!

Intercultural Poetry hosted by Andrey Gritsman presents an evening with
1. David Lehman, Translations of Vladimir Mayakovsky and new original poems
2. Ilya Bernstein, New book of translations of Osip Mandelstam
3. Readings of poems inspired by Victory over the Sun by Alexander Cigale, Elizabeth L. Hodges, Andrey Gritsman, Irina Mashinski, Misha Semenov
4. A staged reading of Action 1, Scene 1 from Larissa Shmailo's translation of Victory over the Sun (Cervena Barva Press) with Bob Holman, Alexander Cigale, Larissa Shmailo, and Misha Semenov with original music composed by Finnish composer Jukka-Pekka Kervinen based on Mikhail Matiushin's partially lost score for the original 1913 production.
Cornelia Street Cafe
29 Cornelia, NYC
Wed 3/11 6:00 pm

Victory over the Sun, Futurism, and Russian Silver Age Poetry in Translation 3/11

For immediate release
Press contacts:
Larissa Shmailo
Larissa_Shmailo@yahoo.com
212-712-9865
Andrey Gritsman
agritsman@msn.com

Victory over the Sun, Futurism, and Russian Silver Age Poetry in Translation
Intercultural Poetry hosted by Andrey Gritsman
Cornelia Street Café
29 Cornelia Street
Wednesday, March 11, 2015
6:00 pm – 7:45 pm
(212) 989-9319

New York City. Iconoclastic Russian theater and poetry of the Russian Silver age will be celebrated at the Cornelia Street Café March 11 with a star-studded program of new translations and original poetry. The event is part of the distinguished Intercultural Poetry series hosted by Andrey Gritsman, which introduces enthusiastic New York audiences to poetry from Russia, Eastern Europe, and many other cultures in stirring and fresh translation.
Noted poet David Lehman (Best American Poetry, http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/david-lehman) opens the bill with translations of Futurist poet Vladimir Mayakovsky and new original verse. Poet and translator Ilya Bernstein will then read from his new book of translations of the master Silver Age poet Osip Mandelstam (http://www.mgraphics-publishing.com/catalog/194022018/194022018.html)
The final event of the evening is a staged reading of part of Larissa Shmailo’s (www.larissashmailo.com) translation of the libretto of Victory over the Sun by Aleksei Kruchenych. Now in print from Červená Barva Press, www.thelostbookshelf.com/cervenabooks.html#Victory%20over%20the%20Sun) Shmailo’s translation was used for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s famous reconstruction of the opera in 1980. The libretto has been performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Smithsonian, and recently at the Garage Museum of Moscow for its retrospective of Russian performative art.
True to the “masculinity” of the original production, the Victory reading will have an all-male cast headed by renowned oral poet Bob Holman (Language Matters PBS series), series host Gritsman, National Endowment of the Art translation award winner Alex Cigale, and Compass Russian poetry translation winner Misha Semenov. The staged reading will be preceded by original poetry celebrating Russian Futurism by Gritsman, Cigale, Semenov, poet and translator and founder of the Compass Award Irina Mashinski http://www.stosvet.net/compass/ArsenyTarkovsky/Tarkovsky.html and Elizabeth Hodges, editor of the St. Petersburg Review (www.stpetersburgreview.com). Original music by Finnish composer Jukka-Pekka Kervinen (http://jukkapekkakervinen.blogspot.com based on Mikhail Matiushin's partially lost score for the original 1913 production will accompany the staged reading and poetry readings.

My translation of Victory over the Sun is featured in Russia Beyond the Headlines!

My translation of the first Futurist opera, Victory over the Sun by Aleksei Kruchenych, is prominently featured in Phoebe Taplin's great article on the enduring appeal of the Russian avant-garde in Russia Beyond the Headlines. Thanks to my publisher, Gloria Mindock of Červená Barva Press, Eugene Ostashevsky for his brilliant introduction, and Alexander Cigale for the design and other help with this publication!

http://rbth.com/literature/2015/01/21/the_enduring_appeal_of_russias_avant-garde_43039.html

Compass Translation Award Ceremony

I'm please to be reading at the Compass Award-2014 Ceremony, which will take place at Poets House in New York, on Saturday, January 17 at 4:00 pm.

The presentation of Compass awards for Arseniy Tarkovsky translations will happen in conjunction with the launch of Volume 4 of Cardinal Points literary journal (presented by StoSvet Project, together with MadHat Press http://madhat-press.com/ and Russian-American Cultural Center http://www.russianamericanculture.com/ ).

This year's Compass Award Ceremony is dedicated to the memory of George Kline and Nina Cassian, both esteemed Cardinal Points friends and authors.

The poet for the 2015 contest will be announced at the Award Ceremony.

With questions concerning the event, please contact Alexander Veytsman, the Director of the Compass Award at compass@stosvet.net

Cervena Barva Press announces Victory Over the Sun translated by Larissa Shmailo

Cervena Barva Press announces "Victory Over the Sun"
The First Futurist Opera by Aleksei Kruchenykh
Translated by Larissa Shmailo; edited and with an introduction by Eugene Ostashevsky

"Victory over the Sun, one of the most important events in Russian Futurism and in the avant-garde in general, is not well recognized in the West. Now in a new edition of Larissa Shmailo's brilliant translation of the text, with a lively introduction by Eugene Ostashevsky, readers can appreciate the significance and innovativeness of the 1913 play. Using Shmailo's translation and Malevich's pathbreaking stage designs, the play was reconstructed and staged in 1980 to great acclaim and remains a signal accomplishment in the history of the avant-garde."
—Gerald Janecek, Author of Zaum: The Transrational Poetry of Russian Futurism (UCSD, 1996) and Sight and Sound Entwined (Berghahn Books, 2000)

"Velimir Khlebnikov, literally, missed the train on co-penning this one, contributing only a poem to Kruchenykh's libretto. Staged alongside Mayakovsky's Vladimir Mayakovsky, A Tragedy, the 1913 original production of Victory is remembered primarily for Kazimir Malevich's costumes, lighting, and set design, instigations for the Suprematism and Constructivism still to come in 1915 and 1919, respectively…. Nothing is more fitting for this centennial of "Russian Futurianism" than a celebration of Kruchenykh's great contribution to poetry, his Zaum, and not just for its verbal play – the inventive neologizing and the épater-le-bourgeois utopianism – but for the underappreciated antilyricism of his verse, as well. In communicating to us his musicality in English, Larissa Shmailo has done a remarkable job in conferring on Kruchenykh his true due as a poet." —Alex Cigale, Translations Editor of MadHat Lit

"A century ago, Aleksei Kruchenykh was the way out writer's most way out writer. If publishing today, he still would be."
—Richard Kostelanetz, Author of A Dictionary of the Avant-Gardes (Routledge, 1993)

http://www.thelostbookshelf.com/cervenabooks.html
#Victory over the Sun
$16.00 | ISBN: 978-0-692-30231-6 | 56 Pages

My translation of A. Kruchenykh's Victory over the Sun now available from Červená Barva Press

I am thrilled to announce the publication of my translation of Aleksei Kruchenykh's libretto of the first Russian Futurist opera, Victory over the Sun (1913). Published by Gloria Mindock's Červená Barva Press, this edition has a brilliant introduction by Eugene Ostashevsky. This publication would not have been possible without the help of Alexander Cigale. who, with scholars Gerald Janacek and Richard Kostelanetz, have provided wonderful blurbs for the book. Cover art is from Kazimir Malevich's set designs for the original production. Thanks to everyone who has made this publication possible, and to the Garage Museum of Moscow for using this translation for their reconstruction of the opera!

Writing Across Borders: National Writers Union Conference on Immigration 5/18

The National Writers Union Conference on immigration, "Writing Across Borders," is this Sunday! Alexander Cigale, Irina Mashinski, and I will be reading at 4:00 pm at the "Immigrant Cocktail Hour" and I'll be participating in the panel "The Language of Migration" with Claudia Serea! It will be a brilliant day of literature and journalism. Join us!

Celebrate National Translation Month!

The Williams Readings present

ALEX CIGALE & LARISSA SHMAILO

NATIONAL TRANSLATION MONTH

Wednesday, February 5, 2014, 7 p.m.

Williams Center for the Arts
One Williams Plaza, Rutherford NJ

Plus the words of William Carlos Williams and open readings from the floor

Contact: John Barrale – john.barrale@gmail.com

Alex Cigale’s translations from Russian, and his own English-language poems, have appeared in Cimarron, Colorado, Cortland, Green Mountains, New England, The Literary Reviews, Drunken Boat, Interlit Quarterly, Literary Imagination, Modern Poetry in Translation, and PEN America. He’s on the editorial boards of Asymptote, COEUR journal, The Madhatters’ Review, The St. Petersburg Review, Third Wednesday, and Verse Junkies. From 2011 until 2013, he was Assistant Professor at the American University of Central Asia.

Larissa Shmailo is the editor of the new anthology Twenty-first Century Russian Poetry and founder of The Feminist Poets in Low-Cut Blouses. Larissa translated the zaum opera Victory Over the Sun for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s landmark restaging of the work and has been a translator and writer on the Bible in Russia for the American Bible Society. Her poetry and criticism have appeared in The Common, Barrow Street, The Brooklyn Rail, Drunken Boat, Fulcrum, Madhat, Lungfull!, Jacket, and the anthologies Words for the Wedding (Penguin), Contemporary Russian Poetry (Dalkey Archive), and the Unbearables Big Book of Sex (Autonomedia). Her books of poetry are In Paran (BlazeVOX [books]), the chapbook A Cure for Suicide (Cervena Barva Press), and the e-book Fib Sequence (Argotist Ebooks); her poetry CDs are The No-Net World and Exorcism (SongCrew). Her newest poetry collection, #specialcharacters, is forthcoming from Unlikely Books.

NYC Launch of Twenty-first Century Russian Poetry

You are cordially invited to the New York City launch of the new anthology Twenty-first Century Russian Poetry

featuring readings by poets and translators Alexander Cigale, Vladimir Druk, Dana Golin, Irina Mashinski, Misha Semenov, Alexander Stessin, and Alexei Tsvetkov.

Sponsored by Intercultural Poetry at Cornelia hosted by Andrey Gritsman and the Russian American Cultural Center.

Wednesday, December 11, 6:00 - 8:00 pm
The Cornelia Street Cafe
29 Cornelia
New York, NY
Contact: 212-712-9865

Twenty-first Century Russian Poetry is edited by Larissa Shmailo and published by Big Bridge Press.

Imaginary Bios of The Feminist Poets in Low-Cut Blouses

By popular demand (well, six people asked me), I am sharing my imaginary bios for the Feminist Poets in Low-Cut Blouses, read 9/28 at Tribes.

Amy King won the Golden Globe for best leading role in the film version of I Am the Man Who Loves You. In September 2013, the artificial intelligence app she designed became self-aware when Goodreads, the Poetics List, and the Wompo group merged into a blog named Alias, which promptly took over the world and inherited a tidy sum to boot. According to Vida statistics, Amy is the poet most admired by female writers under 90. Amy is currently working on her memoir entitled John Ashbery Blurbed Me.

In 2013, Alexander Cigale translated War and Peace into Bashkir, the complete works of Osip Mandelstam into Chuvash, and 147 asemic poets from Smolensk into Old English. He is a professor at 14 Eurasian universities and is the translation editor for the Antioch Review, the Atlantic Review, the Antediluvian Review, and the Antidisestablishmentarian Review. In 2014, Alex plans to translate everything that begins with B.

According to the Boston Review, Sarah Sarai has a Beard of Bees, but sources at Literary Lambda say that this has not come out yet. In 2012, twelve people died of joy listening to her poetry. Sarah's poetic ear has been insured by Lloyd's of London for three million dollars. According to sources close to the poet, Sarah "writes what she likes."

Tim Trace Peterson is the editor of 19 prestigious journals, included EEE, and Agh, and e-i-e-i-o. Trace is the winner of four consecutive awards Transubstantiation Awards for enlightened poetic sensibility and best hair at a reading. A popular instructor of graduate students in literature, Trace has actually been known to demand equal pay for equal lecturing, which has earned Trace the nickname Third Wave Joe and Anita Hill. Trace's followers espouse Trace's radical thinking, which says people have the right to be who they want to be

Patricia Spears Jones is a Rhodes Scholar best known for her work on the ecology of the White Pine. In 2013, Patricia attended 4,827 readings in the New York City area, 4,826 of them as a featured reader. Patricia is known as Arkansas's sole cultural resource, and has received the Marx Award for best dactyl, the Veblein Award for assonance, Jeremy Bentham Award for Hidden Meaning, and three grants from the Society of Slant Rhymes. She will anthologize this reading.

Elizabeth Macklin won an Amy Lowell Traveling Poet Award, which she used to live among the Romani in Czechoslovakia, who consider the poet semi-divine. At the New Yorker, Elizabeth was used as an arbiter of taste, with the famous Macklin "no way, Jose Brodksy" being the final word on poetic acceptance. A strict editor of her own work, Elizabeth has been known to discard a book-length poem for one bad iamb. Currently, Elizabeth teaches songbirds to sing.

Dana Golin fled Tashkent when her cover as an university professor was blown and she was discovered to be leaking sensitive Uzbek intelligence to Wikileaks. Here in the United States, she is primarily known as a psychic who channels unpublished work of Anna Ahkmatova for literary circles. As a poet, she is best known by the moniker "Brodsky's kid sister." In 2014, she will teach the city of Hoboken Russian.

Audrey Roth is a poet who writes her work on baseball cards; informed sources say that her verse led the Miracle Mets to victory in 1969. Her friends wonder whether she is a mother or a lawyer, or a mother of a lawyer. A yoga practitioner, Audrey often stands with arms akimbo. It is said that Hilary is looking at Audrey for Vice President, or possibly just for vice. Audrey enjoys running with bulls and plugging dykes.

Susan Lewis is a poet and psychiatrist with a practice focusing on disturbed haberdashers. Sources close to Susan say she is responsible for curing the otolith issues of over three thousand experimental poets. Her additional expertise is in being another poet and in giving state of the union addresses. Friends posit that Susan will have edited 800 online journals by 2015.

Twenty-first Century Russian Poetry in Translation

Please join us on Thursday, April 11, 6:00 pm, at New York City's Cornelia Street Cafe for a special sampling from the forthcoming Big Bridge Magazine anthology, "Twenty-first Century Russian Poetry," edited by Larissa Shmailo

Poets and Translators:
Philip Nikolayev, Katia Kapovich, Irina Mashinski, Dana Golin, Alexander Cigale, Andrey Gritsman, Larissa Shmailo

Host:
Andrey Gritsman


See all the event details here:
http://www.facebook.com/events/579275735425672/

Do skorogo!

SUNDAY, MARCH 10: UNLIKELY HATTERS II

MadHat Presents and Unlikely Stories: Episode IV  are teaming up to bring you a literary evening worth setting your clock for.

New Yorkers Alexander Cigale, Steve Dalachinsky, Dana Golin, Susan Lewis, Yuko Otomo and Larissa Shmailo will be there, bringing you visions global and interdimensional. And Jonathan Penton will be on hand from Louisiana, drinking your oil spills and stealing your toothpaste.

Our writers will be accompanied by Leon Dewan of Dewanatron, inventor of the Swarmatron, the crazed electronic genius described at http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2011/01/24/110124ta_talk_paumgarten .

The whole thing goes down at 6:30 pm at le poisson rogue, 158 Bleeker St., New York, in the gallery. Come recover from the AWP Conference with us, or just gloat that you had more sense than to go!

You can learn more about the Unlikely series at http://www.unlikelystories.org/ and the MadHat family at http://www.madhatarts.com/ .

(le) poisson rouge

158 Bleecker Street, New York, New York 10012

Sun March 10 6:30 pm

View Map · Get Directions

UNLIKELY HATTERS: PART 1

MadHat Presents (formerly the “Poetry, Prose, and Anything Goes” reading series of Mad Hatters’ Review) and Unlikely Stories: Episode IV (grandchild of Unlikely Stories and overbearing spouse of Unlikely Books) are teaming up to bring you a literary afternoon of weirdness, whimsy, and complete unpredictability!

New Yorkers Alexander Cigale, Dana Golin, Susan Lewis, Peter Marra and Larissa Shmailo will be there, bringing you visions and images from alien imaginations, global and interdimensional. Joel Lewis will be joining us from New Jersey, with a suitcase of thoughtful analyses and careful observations. Jonathan Penton will be on hand from Louisiana, drinking your oil spills and stealing your toothpaste. And Marc Vincenz will be joining us all the way from Zurich, with his searing and sophisticated cosmologies and romanticism.

Our writers will be accompanied by Leon Dewan of Dewanatron, inventor of the Swarmatron, the crazed electronic genius described at http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2011/01/24/110124ta_talk_paumgarten.

The whole thing goes down at Sidewalk, 94 Avenue A, New York, AT 3:30 PM, where the beers are buy-one-get-one-free refill on Saturday afternoons! And after our read, stick around for a Boog City Literary event at 6pm!

You can learn more about the Unlikely series at http://www.unlikelystories.org/ and the MadHat family at http://www.madhatarts.com/. And check out Unlikely Hatters: Part II at le poisson rouge, described at https://www.facebook.com/events/306140252842476/!