Department of Slavic Studies to host ‘A Guide Through the Flames’ with Serbian Poet Ognjenka Lakićević to encourage interest in Slavic literature. Credit: Courtesy of Ognjenka Lakićević
Ohio State’s Center for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies will host a poetry reading with Serbian poet and musician Ognjenka Lakićević Wednesday.
The event — titled “A Guide Through the Flames,” after one of Lakićević’s past works — will take place from 12:40-1:40 p.m. in room 291 of the Journalism Building or online via Zoom. Emma Pratt, assistant director of the center, said the poetry reading is designed to encourage a wider interest in East European literature.
“It’s not just fussy, old-fashioned poetry; it’s not just [Alexander] Pushkin or [Leo] Tolstoy,” Pratt said. “There is modern, fun stuff happening, and you can apply the things you’re interested in in the U.S. throughout the world.”
Lakićević, also a member of the alternative rock group Autopark, has published five poetry collections, according to the center’s website.
At Wednesday’s event, Lakićević — who will attend via Zoom — will read Serbian selections from her past and upcoming poetry collections. English translations will be provided by Matthew Boyd, an assistant professor of teaching in the Department of Slavic and Eastern European languages and cultures.
“She addresses themes of loneliness, where people’s individual internal lives meet with political structures on the outside,” Boyd said. “This switches very quickly from a light and conversational tone to something very compact and emotionally wounding.”
Pratt said the center frequently hosts events to engage students who don’t directly study Eastern European languages or cultures.
“We try to keep it pretty diverse, to keep students interested, and [we recognize] that not all students have the same interests,” Pratt said.
Boyd said he hopes department-lead events like Wednesday’s poetry reading will inspire attendees to think creatively and connect with unfamiliar literature.
“By doing this, not only does it demonstrate how familiar something like a foreign place can be when you can relate to somebody who’s expressing themselves much in the same way maybe you would, but to make just art for art’s sake,” Boyd said.
Ultimately, Pratt said the center’s programming aims to spark interest in an unfamiliar area of the world.
“A lot of students think of Eastern Europe as the old country, where our great grandparents escaped from, and sort of stuck in the past,” Pratt said. “We [want] to show that this part of the world is part of the modern world, and a lot of trends that we see happening here are happening throughout the world in different ways.”
More information about “A Guide Through the Flames,” including how to join the event on Zoom, is available on the center’s website.
