Faculty News

Dumanis on Poetry as a Second Language

In an essay in Literary Hub, faculty member Michael Dumanis discusses writing poetry "animated by American English and frequently set in a recognizably American landscape, yet wholly rooted in Russian language and tradition, composed with a distinctly Russian ear and what I think is a distinctly Soviet, ex-Soviet, or would-be-Soviet sensibility".

Image of Michael Dumanis

Dumanis is the author of the poetry collection My Soviet Union (University of Massachusetts Press, 2007), winner of the Juniper Prize for Poetry. Born in Moscow, in the former Soviet Union, he emigrated with his family at the age of five and grew up in Western New York. 

He delivered the inaugural poem for Mariko Silver's installation as president of Bennington College in 2013.

Read more of his poetry.