Carcanet Press - Eugene Ostashevsky

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Eugene Ostashevsky was born in Leningrad, grew up in Brooklyn and is now based in Berlin and New York. His books of poetry include The Pirate Who Does Not Know the Value of Pi, which discusses the challenges of communication between pirates and parrots, and The Life and Opinions of DJ Spinoza, which examines the defects of natural and artificial languages. As translator of avant-garde and experimental literature in Russian, he focuses on the OBERIU group (Daniil Kharms, Alexander Vvedensky) and its predecessors and successors. He has received the International Poetry Prize of the City of Muenster and the National Translation Award from the American Literary Translators Association.

Praise for Eugene Ostashevsky 'Ostashevsky's immense and multilingual opus of philosophy, language, pun and the absurd is a performative and rollicking ride.'
Jacqueline Saphra, The Poetry Review
'Feelings proliferate in The Feeling Sonnets, and first among them is the feeling that we have to ask what we mean by feeling. It is to feel his way toward an answer to that primary question that the brilliant poet Eugene Ostashevsky has written this collection of vivacious, witty, and anguished poems. As the poems unfold, language gets caught up in proliferative play. The poet flounders through fields of feeling, one felt word spilling out of another, one spelt word spelling another. Feeling moves from one cultural or linguistic context to another, doubling and redoubling the potential for meaning and the potency of meaning's prolific uncertainty and occasional absurdity. And extending through the linguistic microsystem of vowels and consonants that shift meanings from place and place (and even nation to nation) is the exquisite sensibility of a poet, erudite, humble, and closely watching over those he loves. This is an extraordinary and beautiful book.'
Lyn Hejinian 'Eugene Ostashevsky is a multilingual language explorer. The Feeling Sonnets is an exhilarating and witty enquiry into the designs that language has on us as intellectual, domestic and historical beings. This is poetry as punning philosophy, both entertaining and deeply serious. This book is a tour de force, turning languages' spotlights onto speech itself. Yet again, Carcanet is publishing important poetry.'
Gwyneth Lewis

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Eugene Ostashevsky Books by this author: The Feeling Sonnets About Reviews Eugene Ostashevsky was born in Leningrad, grew up in Brooklyn and is now based in Berlin and New York. His books of poetry include The Pirate Who Does Not Know the Value of Pi, which discusses the challenges of communication between pirates and parrots, and The Life and Opinions of DJ Spinoza, which examines the defects of natural and artificial languages. As translator of avant-garde and experimental literature in Russian, he focuses on the OBERIU group (Daniil Kharms, Alexander Vvedensky) and its predecessors and successors. He has received the International Poetry Prize of the City of Muenster and the National Translation Award from the American Literary Translators Association. Praise for Eugene Ostashevsky 'Ostashevsky's immense and multilingual opus of philosophy, language, pun and the absurd is a performative and rollicking ride.' Jacqueline Saphra, The Poetry Review 'Feelings proliferate in The Feeling Sonnets, and first among them is the feeling that we have to ask what we mean by feeling. It is to feel his way toward an answer to that primary question that the brilliant poet Eugene Ostashevsky has written this collection of vivacious, witty, and anguished poems. As the poems unfold, language gets caught up in proliferative play. The poet flounders through fields of feeling, one felt word spilling out of another, one spelt word spelling another. Feeling moves from one cultural or linguistic context to another, doubling and redoubling the potential for meaning and the potency of meaning's prolific uncertainty and occasional absurdity. And extending through the linguistic microsystem of vowels and consonants that shift meanings from place and place (and even nation to nation) is the exquisite sensibility of a poet, erudite, humble, and closely watching over those he loves. This is an extraordinary and beautiful book.' Lyn Hejinian 'Eugene Ostashevsky is a multilingual language explorer. The Feeling Sonnets is an exhilarating and witty enquiry into the designs that language has on us as intellectual, domestic and historical beings. This is poetry as punning philosophy, both entertaining and deeply serious. This book is a tour de force, turning languages' spotlights onto speech itself. Yet again, Carcanet is publishing important poetry.' Gwyneth Lewis	Share this... Quick Links Carcanet Poetry Carcanet Classics Carcanet Fiction Carcanet Film Lives and Letters PN Review Video Carcanet Celebrates 50 Years! The Carcanet Blog We've Moved! read more Books of the Year read more One Little Room: Peter McDonald read more Collected Poems: Mimi Khalvati read more Invisible Dog: Fabio Morbito, translated by Richard Gwyn read more Dante's Purgatorio: Philip Terry read more
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