At the end of his poem, “The Prayer”, Eugene Ostashevsky writes “I don’t want your cookies, I don’t want your meat/I spin in the air without hands and feet/I spin in the air without hands and feet/because nothing about me is concrete”. The poem is a confession of personal style as much as it is a sing-song statement of philosophical disposition.
Ostashevsky, the impossible-to-pronounce-up-and-coming poet, can be witnessed here in all his confounding poetic glory. As you will learn in this video, Eugene is a Russian poet who emphasizes absurdity, voice, and rhyme. An acquired taste, Ostashevsky dabbles in metaphysics (as is seen in his poem “P or Not P” or “Remember the Cogito”, and his poems are replete with references to infamous technical difficulties drawn from the history of philosophy and linguistics. Of himself, Ostashevsky writes “[o]ld avant-garde poetry informs my own writing”. He studied at StanfordUniversity, and lectures at NYU. The publisher of his recent work "Iterature" (from which the quote at the beginning of this article is drawn), Ugly Duckling Presse, is a Brooklyn-based publishing house with regular events, and an overabundance of fresh talent. Signing up on their mailing list can direct Brooklynites to publishing events, readings, and parties.
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