Welcome
I am a Russian-American poet who translates Russian poets. My family is from Odessa and Moscow, and I am from berries and tea and separation.
My book A Life Replaced (Poets & Traitors, 2019) braids together poems on immigration in America with translations from Anna Akhmatova and our contemporary Vladimir Gandelsman, winner of Russia's highest award for poetry, the Moscow Reckoning. Many poems are responses to these two voices; some are stand-alone works.
In his foreword to the book, Ilya Kaminsky writes: This is a book that lays all its cards on the table. We see poetic influences, yes. We see conversations, yes. We see various voices as they enter Livshin’s life. But we also see the music of play, both textual and mundane, play that allows others to enter and tango and transform.
Feel free to read a few poems from the book here. The book can be bought here.
These are trying times. I co-organize the reading series on immigration called "From Across the Waters" with Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach. For more information about "From Across the Waters," please feel free to write me at olga@olgalivshin.com.
And to stay in touch, please feel free to subscribe to my newsletter.
Welcome, and enjoy your stay!
Book tour
Saturday, November 9, ALTA off-site reading with Olga Zilberbourg and Dmitri Manin at 7 PM @Java's, 16 Gibbs St., Rochester, NY
Wednesday, February 19, speaker for the Davis Lecture, Wheaton College, Norton, MA; time TBA
Thursday, March 5, #AWP20 Cheburashki Collective off-site reading at 7:30 PM, @Web House, a Russian bar & restaurant, 320 Blanco Rd., San Antonio
Friday, April 3, DC Metro launch at 6 PM @Zed's Cafe, 8225 Georgia Ave, Silver Spring, MD
Thursday, April 9, 6:30 PM, @ the Harriman Institute at Columbia University, 420 W 118th St, New York
Friday, April 10, @ the Seminary Co-op Bookstore, in conversation with Eleonor Gilburd (University of Chicago), as part of a CEERES of Voices, 6 PM, 5751 S Woodlawn Ave, Chicago
Sunday, May 17, DC-ALT presentation, 2PM, Washington, DC, location TBA
More events coming soon. To find out more, come follow me on Twitter @olgalivshin or Facebook @alifereplaced.