Hilberry & Nisula to Read

THE WONDERPOET CONRAD HILBERRY

AND RUSSIAN TRANSLATOR DASHA NISULA

Sunday April 10, 7PM; Olmsted Room in Mandelle Hall; Kalamazoo College

Renowned poet, Conrad Hilberry, has been translated into Russian by the accomplished translator, Dasha Nisula. Come listen in both English and Russian to this lovely, wise, humorous, profound poetry. Conrad and Dasha have traveled to Russia together to perform these poems in St. Petersburg, and now they are back, in our very own Olmsted Room. Conrad is one of the most beloved personages in Kalamazoo, and this is an important opportunity for us to celebrate him again on April 10 and to listen to his poems in his own voice and in the passionate, musical translations of Dasha Nisula.

CONRAD HILBERRY is the author of several book of poetry, most recently After-Music (Wayne State University Press, 2008) and This Awkward Art (Mayapple Press, 2009), a very special book coauthored with Conrad’s daughter Jane. After teaching in DePauw University, Professor Hilberry joined Kalamazoo College where he taught for 30 years in English Literature and Creative Writing and in that time launched an entire generation of writers, including Diane Seuss. He is now Professor Emeritus. In his own words, “Kalamazoo College seemed to me a perfect place to teach—lively, imaginative, the first school to send almost all its students abroad. Colleagues, students, administrators, all of them were cordial, responsive, smart, easy to work with. And now I'm honored to be invited back for a reading with Dasha.”

DASHA NISULA is a professor of Russian language, literature and culture at WMU, and a translator of Slavic languages into English, and, more recently, from English into Russian.  And she has also been a professor at Kalamazoo College. She has published four books, two of which are poetry in translation, Selected Poems of Vesna Parun (Croatian/English bilingual edition) and Leading Contemporary Poets: An International Anthology.  Her translations have appeared widely, including Pennsylvania Review, Colorado Review, International Poetry Review, IQ: International Quarterly, and Modern Poetry in Translation.