A stop on the route USA-Latvia-Japan: Imaginary Geographies

Ryan Dzelzkalns is an American poet and translator. He has worked at the Academy of American Poets and now studies Japanese in Japan, and in his poetry he explores the feelings and realities that form when you are a part of the LGBT+ community, and an American with an unpronounceable surname. Ryan is said to be the tallest man in New York.

Ivars Šteinbergs is a Latvian poet and poetry translator, who has developed his skills both in Latvia and in the USA. He has translated such English-language poets as Louise Glück, Robert Bly, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton and others into Latvian. His first collection of poems Strops (Hive) was nominated in the ‘Debut’ category at the Annual Latvian Literature Award 2021.

In 2022, House of Languages will publish a collection of poems by Ryan Dzelzkalns entitled Imaginary Geographies. It is a collection that will come to readers through the USA and Japan and stop in Latvia – the place where Ryan’s grandparents (who he refers to as Vecmam and Vectev) come from. The creation of this collection, what you can read in it, how Ryan’s poetry sounds in Latvian and English, what can be expressed in poetry regardless of language: Ryan and Ivars will talk about all this and much more in an online event – the poetry reading A Stop on the Route USA-Latvia-Japan: Imaginary Geographies, on the 8th September 2021.

The event will be translated into Latvian during the event.

Find out more about it on our Facebook page.