Poetry New York

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At the Bowery Poetry Club, The Evergreen Reading Series presented Matvei Yankelevich and Anna Moschovokis, both of whom work at Ugly Duckling Press and who are poets themselves in addition to translating poetry. Anna, while she translates poetry, also translates other types of writing such as fiction. Matvei is the editor of Ugly Duckling Press and talked about how beneficial he feels it is to translate poetry and how much it helps him with his own writing. Both Anna and Matvei were passionate about how great it is to translate poetry and how anyone who can or is interested should try it. Matvei told the audience that in America, only 2 percent of the poetry published here is translated from other languages, as opposed to a place like Germany where 40 percent of the poetry published is translated from other languages.

            Matvei and Anna’s readings were very different, though enjoyable in different ways. Anna’s poetry was very smooth and though many of her lines were fairly simple, they were also symbolic and relatable. She had a way of relating what seems like random objects to one another. She would compare arithmetic to chess to television. Her line, “sometimes there’s an imperfection in the window” illustrates her simplicity, though that one line could lead to many places in anyone’s mind.

            Matvei’s reading of translated poetry was of a faster pace than Anna’s, but his emphasis of on certain words such as buttons in his poem, “Buttons” were delivered in a rhythmic way.

            Both poets’ delivery of the words had a calming effect to them but overall enjoyable to listen to. 

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