Matvei Yankelevich is the author of Alpha Donut (United Artists Books) and Boris by the Sea (Octopus Books), as well as several chapbooks. He is the translator and editor of Today I Wrote Nothing: The Selected Writings of Daniil Kharms (Overlook, 2007). His translations of Russian poetry have appeared in many periodicals including Harpers, New American Writing, Poetry, and The New Yorker, and in several anthologies including OBERIU: An Anthology of Russian Absurdism (Northwestern) and Night Wraps the Sky: Writings by and about Mayakovsky (FSG). He is one of the founding editors of Ugly Duckling Presse, where he edits the Eastern European Poets Series; and a member of the writing faculty of the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College.
Eugene Ostashevsky, born in 1968 in Leningrad, is currently an American poet from New York City. His most recent full-length book of poems, The Life and Opinions of DJ Spinoza, employs characters such as MC Squared, Peepeesaurus, the Begriffon and, of course, DJ Spinoza, to explore the shortcomings of axiomatic systems with the insouciance and energy of Saturday-morning cartoons. Spinoza, as well as his earlier collection, Iterature, came out from Ugly Duckling Presse. As translator, Ostashevsky has edited the first English-language anthology of OBERIU, a Russian avant-garde group from the 1920s and 30s, led by Alexander Vvedensky and Daniil Kharms. His awards include the NEA and a number of other letters. He teaches literature at New York University.
