Friday, October 22, 2010

Dual book launch this Sunday at 6pm!


Two new books of poetry make their debut this Sunday: Live Landscape by Andrey Gritsman and No Other Paradise by Kurt Brown. Brown, founder of the Aspen Writers’ Conference and Gritsman, host of a lovely poetry series at the Cornelia Street Café right here in nyc and editor of the international poetry journal Interpoezia, have both done yeoman’s duty (whatever that is) in narrowing the gap between poetry and the people who love her. Looks like an all-English reading, with a focus on heaven and earth instead of the usual Russian Inferno. What better way to round out your weekend? 


Friday, October 15, 2010

“Cardinal Points” Launch Party Oct. 17!

Where, if not from the center of all things cultural, would you launch a literary journal called “Cardinal Points”? The English language version of a fine recent addition to the literary scene (the Russian Storony sveta, masterminded by poets Irina Mashinski and Oleg Woolf), will be deservedly celebrating its impressive inaugural issue you know where, at 6:30pm this Sunday. More broadly conceived than a journal of translation, this issue includes poetry and prose from the leading lights and most interesting new voices of our times, in both original and translated English: Alicia Ostriker, Glyn Maxwell, Polina Barskova, Ilya Kaminsky, Robert Chandler (guest editor of this issue), Annie Finch, and many, many more. It is an issue-cornucopia, and I expect the evening of celebration will match, since many of its contributors will be in attendance.