Russian Voices Panel III: Maria Stepanova and Sibelan Forrester

Maria Stepanova continues to reside in her native Moscow. She is a founder and editor of the online journal openspace.ru, an opinion-maker for young intellectuals, and she is a well-known cultural commentator. Since 2003 when her first three books of poems appeared, she has published new work regularly and to acclaim. She combines a journalistic attention to contemporary politics and social problems – her poem “the Aviator” references the war in Chechnya – with wildly inventive, phantasmagorical scenarios. She is most famous for plot-driven “ballads” that she describes as a kind of prose, hence the title of her famous long poem “Prose of Ivan Sidorov” (“Proza Ivana Sidorova”). Event takes place as part of Russian Voices Symposium and Philosophical Cabaret - a day long celebration of Russian poetry, music, and culture.