Ostashevsky, Eugene 1968-

views updated

Ostashevsky, Eugene 1968-

PERSONAL:

Born 1968, in St. Petersburg, Russia. Education: Stanford University, Ph.D.

ADDRESSES:

CAREER:

During early career, worked as an instructor at Bilkent University, Turkey, at Università degli Studi di Bergamo, Italy, and at Stanford University; New York University, New York, NY, master teacher of humanities. Founder, 9x9 Industries (writers consortium), San Francisco, CA.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Wytter Bynner Poetry Translation Fellowship, 2003, for translations from Russian; Artists' Fellowship for Poetry, New York Foundation for the Arts, 2005.

WRITINGS:

POETRY

Off-Centaur, Germ Folios (Brooklyn, NY), 2002.

Iterature, Ugly Duckling Presse (Brooklyn, NY), 2005.

Infinite Recursor or the Bride of DJ Spinoza, StudioRADIA/Ugly Duckling Presse (Brooklyn, NY), 2006.

DJ Spinoza's Dozen, Octopus Books (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada), 2007.

OTHER

(Editor and cotranslator) OBERIU: An Anthology of Russian Absurdism, Northwestern University Press (Evanston, IL), 2006.

Contributor to books, including Best American Poetry 2005 and The PIP Gertrude Stein Awards in Innovative Poetry in English, Green Integer (Los Angeles, CA), 2007. Contributor to periodicals, including Jubilat, Fence, American Poetry Review, Conjunctions, and Boston Review.

SIDELIGHTS:

Eugene Ostashevsky is a Russian-born and Brooklyn-raised poet and scholar. While pursuing a doctoral degree from Stanford University, Ostashevsky cofounded 9x9 Industries, a San Francisco writers' consortium. He then returned to New York City after spending time in Turkey and became an instructor in the general studies department at New York University. His poetry collections include Off-Centaur and Iterature.

Ostashevky's poetry has earned commendations for its wit, humor, and skillful use of rhyme. In a review for Octopus Magazine, Mathias Svalina wrote that Iterature is "an amazing display of dedication to and exploration of a personal style. Ostashevsky pushes all of his language and ideas out, seemingly as quickly and nakedly as possible. His absurdism manifests itself in drastic jumps in ideas, the following of language into cul de sacs of meaning, a mixture of bravado and self deprecation and ubiquitous, devious humor." Svalina further remarked: "Ostashevsky employs the rhyming couplet as his controlling agent and this formal element is what I find most compelling in his work." A Publishers Weekly reviewer commented: "Few recent books of verse are as consistently funny and surprising."