The Only Question: Iowa City and Ulyanovsk – Jacquelyn Bengfort and Danila Nozdryakov
23.03.2022
The Ulyanovsk UNESCO City of Literature Program Directorate continues publishing The Only Question – new international project – materials. 40 authors from 18 UNESCO literary cities (or related cities) participate in the project. Authors from Iowa City and Ulyanovsk – Jacquelyn Bengfort and Danila Nozdryakov – are our guests of the project.
The organizers invited writers, poets, playwrights, translators from UNESCO literary cities to imagine they have the opportunity to ask just one question to an author from any other literary city. The initiative will help to introduce the authors from the literary cities to each other and establish their dialogue. The project will also let to understand what issues are of concern to authors from different countries today. Besides, it will provide an opportunity for readers to get to know new writers and poets.
Questions and answers by the authors (in Russian and English) along with a short biography of each participant and links to their publications will regularly appear on the Ulyanovsk UNESCO City of Literature Website, other literary cities’ websites, and social media, etc. Writers’ dialogs will also be offered for publication on the project partners’ platforms (literary magazines, libraries, literary media, and mass media). As a result of the project, in summer 2022 an online anthology will be released (in Russian and English) with all the conversations.
Iowa City and Ulyanovsk – Jacquelyn Bengfort and Danila Nozdryakov
Jacquelyn Bengfort, Iowa City
How does your training in historical studies and your work as a journalist inflect on your work as a poet?
Danila Nozdryakov, Ulyanovsk
I must confess that I have never thought about this connection between education and my historical degree and my poetry. My idea is to find something in common between completely different things in my verses. I often use the technic of convergence of distant epochs, occasions and people. Sometimes I hear similar sounds in words, sometimes I try to find resemblance between circumstances. Perhaps this is the influence of historical education. I work as a journalist and searching of ideas is my chief occupations. I may say the same thing about poetry. Evgeniy Strelkov, contemporary author and painter from Nizhny Novgorod, defines his poems as “the industrial residue”. I suppose there is nothing derogatory in his concept. This definition emphasizes the connection of the poetic ideas with the ideas from the other arts. I write articles and prose. And I always can borrow some themes thence. I am not afraid of a loss of ideas, I am afraid of too much ideas.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Jacquelyn Bengfort
Jacquelyn Bengfort is a writer and collagist living in Iowa City, Iowa. A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and the University of Oxford and a recipient of the Rhodes Scholarship and the Truman Scholarship, she has received poetry fellowships from the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Jacquelyn is the author of the Ghost City Press micro-chapbooks Navy News Service and Suitable for All Methods of Communication and serves as an editor for HOOT Review. She is currently pursuing an MFA as a Rona Jaffe Graduate Fellow at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
For more info visit:
https://feralpoetry.net/giant-collision-theory-by-jacquelyn-bengfort/,
https://twitter.com/olicketysplit/status/1410340856423452672,
https://bourgeononline.com/2021/05/four-poems-by-jacqueline-bengfort/,
https://www.quarterlywest.com/issue-102-bengfort,
https://bourgeononline.com/2019/09/two-poems-by-jacquelyn-bengfort/,
https://www.nicecage.com/issues/007/bengfort.html,
https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/60204154/cease-cows,
https://jellyfishreview.wordpress.com/2017/08/10/a-habitable-place-by-ja...
Danila Nozdryakov
Danila Nozdryakov - poet and prose writer. Born in Ulyanovsk, now lives in Moscow. Graduated from Ulyanovsk State University. Studied history. Worked as a professor of philosophy and history. Now he works as a journalist. Since 2016, he began to publish in Russian literary magazines. His debut collection of poems, "The Volga Children's Republic", was published by the famous Russian publishing house "Voymega" in 2020.
For more info visit:
http://textura.club/hyuston-u-nas-problemy/
http://literratura.org/poetry/3157-danila-nozdryakov-lyudi-uhodyat-iz-do...
https://formasloff.ru/2020/01/15/danila-nozdryakov/
https://soyuzpisateley.ru/contents.php?id=92
https://unost.org/authors/chetyre-slova/
https://flagi.media/page/3/online_issue/13#piece138
http://articulationproject.net/11486?fbclid=IwAR2iicryNJatxvTSw0bBuQFqSR...