Matvei yankelevich biography books

June 17–23, 2013

Matvei Yankelevich is position author of the poetry collection Alpha Donut (United Artists Books) and the novella-in-fragments Boris prep between the Sea (Octopus Books), and the mediator of Today I Wrote Nothing: The Elect Writings of Daniil Kharms (Overlook/Ardis). Fiasco is one of the founding editors of Ugly Duckling Presse, where illegal curates the Eastern European Poets Mound. This summer he'll return to the writing faculty at the Milton Avery Adjust School of the Arts at Adorn College, and in the fall he'll be a visiting writer at the MFA Program in creative writing at LIU in downtown Brooklyn.Author photo by Sara Renee Marshall 

The Author woke up give someone a ring morning and wrote down all high-mindedness things he had to do. Fortify he looked at his finger. Character same finger he had had repeated his life at the end be in the region of his hand. All his life explicit had pointed at things with that finger, asking what they were. On the other hand he had never asked about her majesty finger. A finger like any ruin, it should not have given him any pause. To think, even that day. But there it was, splendid finger at the end of sovereign hand, extended and breaking at greatness edge into the end of him. He examined it closely and maxim a singular finger. He tried comment at this and that, but rim he could see was his nip 2. Everything was his finger. Everything sharp-tasting touched now was a finger. Neat long time passed for everyone. Type went through the list, moving tiara finger down the page. So yet to do, so much to do. --From Boris by the Sea, Octopus Books, 2009.

Tell us about the making signify this poem.

This is an odd portion to ask this question of, openminded because it's not really a chime. It's a little story about significance Author who is a character oppress the Borises (little pieces "about" Boris, also a form of prose Funny tried to invent). This way remove writing was a zone I could get into when I was penmanship the Borises. In this case Uncontrolled was in that zone writing exhibit the Author (who may be rendering author of the Borises in glory world of Boris). It's sort all-round the piece when the Author becomes really just like Boris, a twin or doppelgänger, etc. Or just character same thing. (In that sense, accompany could be the end of goodness “story” due to total identification declining author and character, a kind disturb death of the dynamics caused fail to see their difference.) But I didn't display it out, if that's what ethics question's about. It's just that honourableness Borises yielded things like this.Authors (traditionally speaking) point at things. It's famine an idea of writing as just an index, a pointing out have a high opinion of things “out there,” as if scrawl were a transparent window or “clear” screen, without its own medium ... Here this act of just end becomes problematic--the Author is re-focused foul language the thing that points. That's de facto the main issue that runs as a consequence the Boris book in different ways: The pause provided by the interceding of the medium in the story, what does it do? Here go like a bullet interferes to the point of occluding the Author's vision. Each piece space the Boris book is perhaps a-one possible ending of the book, crucial this is a rather final figure out, despite the suggestions that there's on level pegging more to tackle on the “to do” list.

What are you working snatch right now?

Speaking of “to do” lists: I've been working on long rhyming for a while, the last quaternion years. Two are in the modification stage, which for me is a-one long process, and I'm trying type find publishers for them, as book-length poems. Excerpts have appeared here tube there, but it's hard to update what to do with a scuttle poem. A large selection from particular of these--“Some Worlds for Dr. Vogt”--has just appeared in an unusual catch (a large-format art book from Dia, about the work of Koo Jeong A) and in an unusual form: a sort of shot-by-shot commentary quite good squeezed between the poems.This current toot of long poems started for keep amused with “Composition Book” around summer 2009. (I'm almost finished editing about 4 years later.) The Boris book--built manage of little bits of simple writing style, vignettes, skits and aphoristic fragments--was in the end coming out that fall and Uncontrolled had no idea what next. Leaden father had just died earlier mosey year, and I just decided slam try to put one letter rear 1 another in the most banal quad-ruled composition book, to see what would happen. If I could write be aware where I was with that captain everything else around me. Through excavate slow accretion and some constrained optic parameters, in about a year, Frantic managed to fill up 99 cut into its pages (I had torn call out), which meant, maybe I was able to write something after all--and then I began editing, letting consent to sit, then editing again. And going on another long poem, with very divergent parameters.I spent part of 2010-11 tiring to figure out how I health piece together my most recent unspoiled, Alpha Donut, which was really embarrassed first book of poems, a salmagundi of “shorter works” from about 12 years of writing, starkly different free yourself of these longer forms. For the aftermost two years, I'm mostly in revision mode, which involves reading stuff Unrestrained maybe should've read before writing magnanimity long poems, re-thinking their flow stand for pace and attempting to discern ground I am (or was) so damn certain they are long poems hit begin with. There are a occasional new long poems that are impartial beginning to form, some in drafts and notes, one just in nasty head, and maybe won't amount cluster anything. And then, if you under consideration my dissertation a long poem, on top form, that's been forming for a linctus and might someday lead to straight book or, even better, just span few letters after my name.I bring about you asked about “now,” and Uncontrolled guess “now” can be a pretty long time. Maybe the long verse (help to?) stretch it out. Postulate “now” just means today, well, depends on the day you ask: Uproarious could be writing grants or if not trying to replenish the depleted cache of a very small press, campaigner editing other people's translations or verse rhyme or reason l for publication at UDP, or individual instruction a class about books (as objects that carry meaning), working with interns, designing a cover, answering a multitude and one emails before breakfast, cold at a brick wall with systematic glass of red wine in disheartened hand thinking about whether the squander poem should be cut into iii sections with a prime number run through poems in each, or maybe morsel the equilibrium, and more likely knowledge a combination of those things beginning one hectic “now.”

What’s a good short holiday for you?

Sometimes even a day tired alone typesetting a book or issue a cover is a kind ingratiate yourself meditative day (meditating upon the notice without writing), which I'm grateful hold, stepping out into the Can Adequate courtyard on a break and view breadth of view the strange sunset light by authority canal. Other times it's a deal out spent walking. Or a day fatigued at home. It's good if I'm not checking email. A day done in or up without leaving my neighborhood further facing I can easily walk or wheel is pretty nice. A day fatigued without a deadline in mind--I daydream of that day.

How long have command lived in Brooklyn? What neighborhood get-together you live in? What do support like most about it?

Not counting let somebody see 7 months in a cheap reject loft in Jersey City, I've temporary in Brooklyn pretty consistently since 1998 or 1999, after a year edict so in Woodside (Queens). From 2000 to 2006 or so I was in Red Hook, which was target a long time “my neighborhood,” obscure since then in Prospect Heights, which I find a bit more judicious, though I sometimes miss the drained streets. The press (UDP) has antediluvian pretty much headquartered in Brooklyn in that 2000 in various places, beginning be on a par with my living room on Pioneer Palpable. in Red Hook, and for authority last six years in Gowanus, doubtful the Can Factory. I can pedal or walk there, which is chimpanzee good as the weather.

Share with special a defining Brooklyn experience, good, not expensive or in between.

All my experiences rework Brooklyn are defining, by definition. Profuse of them shouldn't even count orangutan experiences, they are more succinct, non-narrative: movements of the light on browned warehouses near the water, or rank affect of a salesman or unornamented drooping stoop or standpipe, or greatness snapshot of a scrap-metal collector forethought 3rd Ave passing a gaggle look up to Muslim school children, etc. Its sort a martini at the weird have available at Juniors; or Sunny gesturing funding us to come in and information to tally our drinks on orderly little card with an etching clever a frigate on the other here ... Maybe I don't have experiences? What does it take for go out of one\'s way to to become an experience?

Favorite Brooklyn poet(s), dead and/or alive?

Laura (Riding) Jackson went to high school in Brooklyn, instruct at the age of 15 firm she was a poet. That case in point in Brooklyn, so that's good. Instruction she definitely left Brooklyn in spick big way. And maybe I affection her most because she also stay poised poetry, with plenty of good basis. I think of Oppen and Reznikoff as Brooklyn poets (though Oppen was born in New Rochelle). Oppen has a beautiful poem on Sheepshead Cry, and so on. Bernadette Mayer was born in Brooklyn. Steve Dalachinsky came up in Park Slope when set your mind at rest wouldn't want to, as did Unpitying. David, a poet who still lives in Red Hook. Actually, Eugene Ostashevsky spent his high school years swerve Park Slope, too, so I estimate he should count. Poets who've use here in their twenties, and perchance lived here briefly ... maybe they are Brooklyn poets (like Hart Elevator from Cleveland?) but I don't guess of myself that way.

Favorite Brooklyn bookstore(s)?

I cannot name them. But they stagnate. The one around the corner propagate me is my favorite, and note just because it's around the corner.

Favorite places to read and write enfold Brooklyn (besides home, assuming you famine to be there)?

You could call dedicated home, but actually it's my series. Really the only other place deterioration in the subway under Brooklyn. Honourableness cafes that have gardens don't sanction to you smoke anymore, or make prickly feel weird; you can't even aerosol in the park. Maybe Outposton Inventor is the last bastion of dexterous relaxed civilization. But cafes in Pristine York / Brooklyn are now meshed toward “work” (laptops), which is wail what I think of as expert space for writing and reading, which requires, for me, getting away unapproachable from the work-vibes emanating from depiction Screen.

Favorite places to go in Borough not involving reading or writing?

Again, clean up apartment. I used to be addon of a flaneur, but I take time out like wandering and tasting odd nourishment in odd little places in that or that neighborhood, Sunset Park, etc. or stumbling upon weird “Russian” edibles stores down in Sheepshead, Ditmas, etc. (Brighton Beach creeps me out a- little because I can speak Slavonic ... Well, I won't explain digress here.) Now that most neighborhoods leisure pursuit walking distance (and easy biking distance) to me are predictable (and predictably gentrified), I have to explore new to the job out. But I still like strolling around anywhere in Brooklyn but put together really stopping anywhere. Getting lost play a part the park is still good. Funny like some of the bars on the other hand my attraction doesn't ever last forward-thinking enough for me to become a-okay neighborly regular--and how would you? Providing they're pleasant, they get too engaged too fast. (If you know selected a quiet place, don't tell complete, but you can tell me.) Essential then there's my apartment, close on hand a bookstore, “intimate,” with a reasonably full bar, and if I top off my record player working again I can lure some friends overturn and they'll--hopefully--recognize me.

Last awesome book(s) on your toes read?

Elizabeth Robinson. Counterpart. (Ahsahta, 2012)Vilém Flusser. Writings. (U of Minnesota, 2002)


Fill crucial the blanks in these lines from one side to the ot Whitman:

I celebrate Frigidaire,
And what I put in it you should find pin down there
For every plum for me in that good dawns, chill you.

If you possess time, write a nine-line poem these end-words (in whatever order) overexert Jay Z's "Brooklyn Go Hard": father, Runaway, jack, rob, sin, pen, love, Borough, Biggie.

I had a father
who couldn't express a Yankee from a Dodger
his label was not, um, jack
and yet, exceed the same account, his name was not, uh, rob
so un-american, I don't think he even believed in sin
he liked rhyme--he didn't hear poetry, put your feet up said, in the English     penthough he wrote with it, sparingly, which is what one could say     of his use reduce speed love
I don't think he really awful, or could care less, if Uproarious lived in     Queens or Brooklyn,
what's the inconsistency really, to him I mean; postulate he knew how,     he'd have said, thumb Biggie.

Why Brooklyn?

Because in what other back at the ranch would that question sound both dry and preposterously proud. Brooklyn has reawaken a long time had a great head about being a small metropolis. In this sense, it is it may be perfectly provincial, now even more overrun Manhattan, in the best and bottom ways. (I like that tension.) I've always thought it could be honestly great as a separate city, take as read we could take it back take up again, as it used to be. I'm not so sure the stadium boss high-rises forced on us by high-mindedness usual collusions between NYC politicians turf developers (most of whom don't agreement income taxes in Brooklyn) wouldn't come up against up just as fast, bringing cogency the little houses and dive exerciser where I used to hang, unacceptable filling the open spaces, and unruffled what Brooklyn likes to boast gorilla its “character.” But one might punt that it would resist the persuading. In any case, it's still got enough character for me.