Dzvinia Orlowsky

Dzvinia Orlowsky
After a reading at Boston University in 2014
Native name	Дзвіня Орловська
Born	Cambridge, Ohio, United States
Occupation	Poet translator editor teacher
Nationality	Ukrainian-American
Literary movement	Deep image New Internationalism
Notable awards	2024 NEA Translation Fellowship (Co-recipient with Ali Kinsella) 2022 1st Ampersand Poetry Prize for Poetry and Fiction selected by Bruce Weigl 2022 American Association for Ukrainian Studies Translation Prize 2022 finalist for the Griffin International Poetry Prize, the Derek Walcott Poetry Prize, and the ALTA National Translation Award 2021 New England Poetry Club's Diana Der Hovanessian Prize selected by Jean Dany Joachim 2019 Massachusetts Book Awards “Must Read” in Poetry 2019 New England Poetry Club’s Samuel Washington Allen Prize selected by Robert Pinsky 2016 NEA Translation Fellowship (Co-recipient with Jeff Friedman) 2014 Ohio Poetry Day Association's Co-Poet of the Year 2010 Sheila Motton Book Award 2007 Pushcart Prize 1999 Massachusetts Cultural Council Professional Development Grant 1998 Massachusetts Cultural Council Poetry Grant

Dzvinia Orlowsky is a Ukrainian American poet, translator, editor, and teacher. She was born in Cambridge, Ohio and received her BA from Oberlin College and her MFA from the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers. She is author of seven poetry collections published by Carnegie Mellon University Press including Convertible Night, Flurry of Stones (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2009) for which she received a New England Poetry Club's Sheila Motton Book Award, and Silvertone (2013) for which she was named Ohio Poetry Day Association's 2014 Co-Poet of the Year. Her first collection, A Handful of Bees, was reprinted in 2009 as a Carnegie Mellon University Classic Contemporary. Her sixth, Bad Harvest, was published in fall of 2018 and was named a 2019 Massachusetts Book Awards “Must Read” in Poetry. Her most recent collection, Those Absences Now Closest, was published in October, 2024.

Jeff Friedman's and her co-translation of Memorials by Polish poet Mieczyslaw Jastrun for which she and Friedman were awarded a 2016 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Translation Fellowship was published by Dialogos in 2014.

Her co-translations with Ali Kinsella from the Ukrainian of selected poems by Natalka Bilotserkivets, Eccentric Days of Hope and Sorrow, was published by Lost Horse Press in fall, 2021 and short-listed for the 2022 Griffin International Poetry Prize, the Derek Walcott Poetry Prize, the ALTA National Translation Award, and awarded the 2020-2021 American Association for Ukrainian Studies Translation Prize. Their co-translations from the Ukrainian of Halyna Kruk's poetry, Lost in Living, for which they were awarded a 2024 National Endowment for the Arts Translation grant was published by Lost Horse Press in 2024.

In addition to the above, other honors include a Pushcart Prize (2007); A Massachusetts Cultural Council Professional Development Grant (1999); a Massachusetts Cultural Council Poetry Grant (1998); She has also been a finalist in the Grolier Prize, The Academy of American Poets Prize at Ohio State University, and the New Literary Awards Prize. Her poem sequence “The (Dis)enchanted Desna” was a winner of the 2019 New England Poetry Club's Samuel Washington Allen Prize, selected by Robert Pinsky, and her and Kinsella's co-translation from the Ukrainian of Natalka Bilotserkivets's poem sequence "Allergy" was winner of the New England Poetry Club's Diana Der Hovanessian Prize in Translation. More recently, Dzvinia Orlowsky's poem "Our Wagons Were Made Entirely Out of Wood" was selected by Bruce Weigl for the 2022 1st Annual Ampersand Award for Poetry and Prose, sponsored by Pulse & Echo magazine.

Dzvinia Orlowsky's poems, short fiction pieces, and translations have appeared in a number of journals and magazines, including Agni, Antioch Review, Columbia, Consequence Forum, Ezra, Field, Journal of the American Medical Association, Kenyon Review, Lily Poetry Review, Los Angeles Review, Mom Egg Review, New Flash Fiction, 100 Word Story, Plume, Poetry International, Solstice Literary Magazine, The Baffler, The Massachusetts Review, Ploughshares, The Spoon River Review, and The American Poetry Review.

Her work has also appeared in numerous anthologies including Griffin Poetry Prize Anthology (Adam Dickinson, Editor, House of Anasi Press, Inc. 2022); Oxford Anthology of Translation (Oxford University, 2022); Ukrainian-American Poets Respond (Virlana Tkacz, Olena Jennings, Editors, Poets of Queens Press, 2022) The Knowledge: Where Poems Come from and How to Write Them (Dzvid Kirby, Editor, FlipLearning, 2021); Border Lines: Poems of Mirgration (Michaela Moscaliuc, Michale Waters, Editors, Alfred A. Knopf, 2020); Subterranean Fire, Selected Poems by Natalka Bilotserkivets, (Michael Naydan, Editor, Glagoslav Press, 2020); Voices Amidsst the Virus: Poets Respond to the Pandemic (Eileen Cleary, Christine Jones, Editors, Lily Poetry Press, 2020); A Cast-Iron Aeroplane That Can Actually Fly: Commentaries from 80 Contemporary American Poets on Their Prose Poetry, (Peter Johnson, Editor, MadHat Press, 2019) Nothing Short of 100: Selected tales from 100 Word Story (Outpost19, 2018) Nasty Women Poets: An Unapologetic Anthology of Subversive Verse (edited by Grace Bauer and Julie Kane, Lost Horse Press, 2017); Plume Anthologies 2-6; The Working Poet: 75 Writing Exercises and a Poetry Anthology (Autumn House Press, 2009); Never Before, Poems about First Experiences (Four Way Books, 2005); Poetry from Sojourner, A Feminist Anthology (University of Illinois Press, 2004); Dorothy Parker’s Elbow (Warner Books, 2002); A Hundred Years of Youth: A Bilingual Anthology of 20th Century Ukrainian Poetry (Lviv, 2000). A Map of Hope: An International Literary Anthology (Rutgers University Press, 1999); and From Three Worlds: New Writing from the Ukraine (Zephyr Press, 1996).

A founding editor (1993-2001) of New York-based Four Way Books, she is also contributing editor to Agni and served as Editor for Poetry in Translation for Solstice: A Magazine of Diverse Voices (2014-2017). She has taught poetry at the Mt. Holyoke Writers' Conference; The Boston Center for Adult Education; Emerson College; Gemini Ink; Keene State College Summer Writers Conference; Stonecoast Summer Writers’ Conference; Stonecoast MFA Program in Creative Writing; Writers in Paradise; the 2005 Solstice Summer Writers’ Conference at Pine Manor College; and as 2012-2013 Visiting Guest Poet and Adjunct Assistant Professor and 2013-2021Special Lecturer, Poetry and Creative Writing at Providence College. She is also founder and director of NIGHT RIFFS: A Solstice Literary Magazine Reading and Music Series. Dzvinia Orlowsky currently serves as Writer-in-Residence of poetry at The Solstice Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing Program, Lasell University, Newton, Massachusetts. She lives with her husband, Jay Hoffman, in Marshfield, Massachusetts.

Published works

• Those Absences Now Closest (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2024)
• Lost in Living: Selected Poems by Halyna Kruk co-translated from the Ukrainian by Orlowsky and Kinsella (Lost Horse Press, 2024)
• Eccentric Days of Hope and Sorrow: Selected Poems by Natalka Bilotserkivets co-translated from the Ukrainian by Orlowsky and Kinsella (Lost Horse Press, 2021)
• Bad Harvest (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2018)
• Memorials: A Selection, by Mieczyslaw Jastrun translated by Orlowsky and Friedman (Dialogos, 2014)
• Silvertone (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2013)
• A Handful of Bees (Carnegie Mellon University Press Classic Contemporary, 2009)
• Convertible Night, Flurry of Stones (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2009)
• The Enchanted Desna by Alexander Dovzhenko translated from Ukrainian (House Between Water, 2006)
• Except for One Obscene Brushstroke (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2004)
• Edge of House (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 1999)
• A Handful of Bees (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 1994)
• The Four Way Reader 2 edited by Carlen Arnett, Jane Brox, Dzvinia Orlowsky, Martha Rhodes (Four Way Books 2001)
• The Four Way Reader 1 edited by Jane Brox, Dzvinia Orlowsky, Martha Rhodes (Four Way Books 1996)

External links

• Official website
• American Poetry Review: Articles on Dzvinia Orlowsky
• ForeWord Magazine: Review of Convertible Night, Flurry of Stones
• Solstice: Silvertone
• Ploughshares: Site Zero}
• The Drunken Boat: Dzvinia Orlowsky 1
• The Drunken Boat: Dzvinia Orlowsky 2
• The Enchanted Desna on The Drunken Boat: Translation Excerpt 1
• The Enchanted Desna on Agni Online: Translation Excerpt 2
• Červená Barva Press: Dzvinia Orlowsky interviews Alex Motyl
• Green Mountains Literary Review: Silvertone
• Providence College Faculty Author: Dzvinia Orlowsky
• Providence College Publication Highlights: Dzvinia Orlowsky