Join me on June 10th at QMUL Arts One for an evening exploring poetry as cultural translation. Reserve your spot here.
What happens when you write about London in Russian, then translate your own nostalgia into English? When the fog of a Brighton morning carries echoes of Petersburg snow? Poetry becomes archaeology—digging through layers of inherited and acquired vocabularies to find what remains authentically yours.
I’ll be sharing work that investigates this linguistic borderland. “About London” attempts to capture how cities devour newcomers while simultaneously offering transformation—the metropolis as both “gentle executioner” and rebirth chamber. “Departure” emerged from train station chaos, those moments when individual identity dissolves into crowd movement and you suddenly see yourself as exile, stranger, perpetual observer of systems you’ll never fully understand.
These aren’t exercises in cultural nostalgia but explorations of how displacement generates creative energy. “I Want to Tell You a Secret” channels rage at systemic cruelty through satirical verse—the political dimensions of poetry when anger refuses polite translation. “Hymn to Freedom” searches for authentic voice within inherited frameworks of resistance.
The evening will examine how poems bridge cultural memory and present reality, why certain experiences demand particular languages, and what gets lost or discovered in the space between original and translation. We’ll discuss the ethics of self-translation, the politics of language choice, and how multilingual poetry refuses easy categorization.
Living between cultures has taught me that poetry often emerges from productive friction—moments when familiar words fail and you must invent new forms to contain split experience. Russian offers emotional precision that English sometimes lacks; English provides conceptual flexibility that Russian occasionally resists. The most interesting work happens in that gap.
This won’t be simple readings but conversation about what poetry can accomplish when it refuses to stay within single linguistic or cultural boundaries. Interactive discussion, new work exploring linguistic resistance, and space for questions about how displacement transforms into creative fuel.
Recent recognition for “Anonymous Letters” (Creativitys UK Award, April 2025) confirms my belief that literature should be participatory rather than passive. Come prepared to think differently about what poetry can do when it embraces rather than resolves cultural contradiction.
Tuesday, June 10th, 7-9 PM at Queen Mary University. Looking forward to sharing this liminal space with you.
— Writer Anastasia Dubinina