A poetry reading, lecture and presentation by one of the founding members of the Orbita Poetry Group, which works at the intersection of Russian and Latvian languages, cultures and literary traditions. Though their texts are primarily written in Russian, the Orbita poets draw on European, Latvian and Russian traditions and contemporary scenes. Founded in 1999, Orbita has published a series of almanacs of literature and visual art and numerous bilingual Russian-Latvian books of poetry, essays, art and photography, each with its own unique design, as well as audio CDs and a collection of videos. Active in multi-media poetry installations for galleries and museums, Orbita has organized "Word in Motion" festivals of poetic video and multi-media art in Latvia. A Riga-based poet, Khanin collaborates with musicians and works in three-dimensional poetry and performance. He will speak about the history of Russian-Latvian literary exchanges, the multilingual and multicultural urban environment in Riga that has inspired his and Orbita's work, and read his poetry in Russian, with English translations.
Semyon Khanin & the Orbita Poetry Group
