As the Tribeca Film Festival was wrapping up, the PEN festival was in full swing with Salman Rushdie, Toni Morrison, Patti Smith, Richard Ford, and more. As well as the Nomad festival at the FIAF - Alliance Française - focusing on Lebanon this year. Hard to keep up with it all in NYC. I went to a panel about Dystopia and Utopia which included Jonathan Lethem and Eshkol Nevo. The discussion was interesting, many dystopia/utopia around the world today and in yesteryears. Jonathan Lethem talked about dystopic New York of the 70's. A Russian poet was there, talking in Russian which was then translated by an interpreter. Inga Kuznetsova. Whenever she spoke her face, her voice, her body vibrated with passion. All smiles and joy for utopia - writing, literature, anguish and pain for dystopic USSR. In front of a very restrained audience in a large CUNY auditorium she was holding nothing back, her emotions overflowing freely.
And later that night I went to a poetry reading. The international group of poets read translations from their poems. Again, a Russian, Pavel Nastin, read his poems in Russian. He was practically shaking with anticipation, whether dread or excitement, as he walked on stage. He read into the mic, his poetry's strong rhythms rippling through his body. Whether he was expressing sarcasm or nostalgia his whole body joined his voice in shaping the meaning. When he finished reading one a young woman would take over the mic and read the English version. He would run away to the back of the stage and wait there, in trepidation. When his turn was over he left the stage before the end of the clapping and rushed outside to smoke a cigarette.
