Registration REQUIRED by 4pm on February 26, 2026 in order to attend this event.
Please join the Harriman Institute and the Department of Slavic Languages for a poetry reading by Eugene Ostashevsky. Moderated by Mark Lipovetsky.
Eugene Ostashevsky will read his translated and original poetry and discuss the difference between the two. How do translation and translingualism differ in their handling of the sounds and shapes of language? Why is it a mistake to think of poetry as always already a translation? Why is translingualism, in calling attention to language only, a misnomer? And other such things that you did not know you wanted to know you shall know.
Eugene Ostashevsky is a poet and translator whose writing is described as “translingual” because of its focus on linguistic multiplicity and interference. His recent poetry collections, “The Feeling Sonnets” and “The Pirate Who Does Not Know the Value of Pi,” examine the effects of speaking a non-native language on emotions and identity. His translations of Russian and also Ukrainian experimental poetry and prose from Futurism to today are known for their engagement with wordplay and sound effects. He has won the National Translation Award, the Best Translated Book Award, the City of Münster International Poetry Prize, etc., and has published the New York Review of Books, Paris Review, and Best American Poetry.
Headshot by Una Ostashevsky
Please email disability@columbia.edu to request disability accommodations. Advance notice is necessary to arrange for some accessibility needs.
