Personal Information

-->

Ian Probstein, professor of English at Touro University, New York, a bilingual English-Russian poet and translator of poetry, is writing poetry and on poetry.

He published 3 books of scholarship, 13 books of poetry in Russian, 1 in English, and more than a dozen of books of translation; compiled and/or edited more than 30 books and anthologies of poetry in translation; in all, has more than 600 publications in several languages (translated poetry from English, Spanish, Italian, and Polish into Russian and from Russian into English) the US, Germany, Italy, Israel, Brazil, South Africa, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Estonia, and Latvia. He compiled, edited, commented Complete Poems and Selected Cantos of Ezra Pound in Russian Translation. A Bilingual Edition (St. Petersburg: Vladimir Dahl, 2003), of which is one of the major translators. Mr. Probstein is editor, one of major translators, and the author of introduction and commentary of the Russian annotated edition of Collected Poems of T.S. Eliot, published in Moscow (Moscow: AST, 2013). A New Annotated edition of T. S. Eliot’s Complete Poems and Plays was published in St. Petersburg (Azbuka-Antiqua, 2018).  Recently he published Spiritual Soil, a book of essays on Russian Poetry (Moscow: Agraph, 2014), a book of poetry Gordian Knot (Milan: 2014) and participated in the definitive edition of The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas in Russian (Moscow: Rudomino, 2015). His essays, poems in English and translations of poetry  into English have been published in Atlanta Review, The International Literary Quarterly, Brooklyn Rail: In Translation, Jacket-2, Four Centuries of Russian Poetry in Translation, Ugly Duckling Presse, and International Poetry Review, Salonika, Spring, a journal of E.E. Cummings Society, Calliope, CrazyHorse, Rhino, Sibilla, The Epoch Times, The McNeese Review, Metamorphosis, and some others as well as in An Anthology of Jewish-Russian Literature, 1801-2001: Two Centuries of a Dual Identity, 2 vols. Maxim D. Shrayer, editor. Armonk, NY: M E Sharpe, 2007, vol.2., and in the book Vita Nuova (Philadelphia: R.E. M. Press, 1992).

His translations of Osip Mandelstam into English were chosen as a runner–up to The Gabo Prize for Literature in Translation & Multi-Lingual Texts (2016) while his translations of Ezra Pound’s Cantos were shortlisted for the Russian Guild of Translators Master Award.

His essay on the American poet Charles Bernstein “Of Time and the Line” was published in Arcade, Poetry After Language at Stanford University

http://arcade.stanford.edu/content/charles-bernstein-time-and-line

In 20014 Dr. Probstein  delivered a university lecture On the Art of Translation. University of Bologna at Forli, Italy. October 8, 2014 and held a seminar and master class on literary translation at the University of Bologna at Forli, Italy. October 9, 2014.

In the past Dr. Probstein moderated a panel and participated in national and international conferences at Columbia University, University of Pennsylvania, NYU, Dartmouth College, Boston College among others, and has been selected by T. S. Eliot Society to deliver a presentation on Four Quartets by T. S. Eliot at the international conference on modernism at Rapallo, Italy, on June 17, 2016.

 

His most recent books are 

Contemporary American Poetry in Russian from Black Mountain Poets to Language Poetry.  Dr. Ian Probstein and Dr. Vladimir Feshchenko (Moscow Academy of Sciences). Co-editors, translators, compilers, authors of the articles. Moscow: New Literary review, 2022.

https://www.nlobooks.ru/books/otdelnye_izdaniya/24949/

 

Osip Mandelstam, Centuries Encircle Me With Fire: Selected Poems of Osip Mandelstam. A bilingual English-Russian edition. Translation, introduction and commentaries by Ian Probstein. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2022.

The book is available through several online retailers including, but not limited to: 

Academic Studies Press: https://www.academicstudiespress.com/out-of-series/9781644697160

 

The River of Time: Time-Space, Language and History in Avant-Garde, Modernist, and Contemporary Poetry.  Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2017. 300 pp. http://www.academicstudiespress.com/browse-catalog/the-river-of-time

Complete annotated edition of T. S. Eliot’s Poetry and Plays (1120 pp. St. Petersburg: Azbuka–antiqua, 2018). https://azbooka.ru/books/sobranie-exqe

 

Charles Bernstein: Sign Under Test. Selected Poems and Essays.  Ian Probstein, compiled, translated, ed.  Moscow: Center of Contemporary Literature— Russian Gulliver, 2020.

Izbytok Bytiya [A Surplus of Being]. A book of poems in Russian. Moscow: Steklograf [Collotype Press], 2020. 

Charles Bernstein, Zeno’s Way, a bilingual edition. Translated into Russian with a bilingual introduction in English and in Russian by Ian Probstein. New York: Tip-Top Street Publishing, 2023 https://www.tiptopstreet.com/product-page/zeno-s-way

 

Moroka [A Spell]. A book of lyrical and long poems. Minsk: Medial-Novye Mekhi, 2018. 208 pp.

A book of poems in Russian: 

Dve Storony Medali [Two sides of one medal]. Moscow-Ekaterinburg, Russia: Ridero, 2018. Second extended edition 172 pp. https://www.litres.ru/yan-probshteyn-12320183/

http://www.ozon.ru/person/324184/

A Chapter in the book:

Ian Probstein. “I will come back as a young magician” [Ia vernus’ molodym chudideyem].  A Memoir.  “In Memoriam”, a poem dedicated to Arkady Shteinberg (1907–1984) in the book: Izbrannoie [Selected]. A book of selected poems by the prominent Russian poet, artist, and an outstanding translator of poetry Arkady Akimovich Shteinberg (1907–1984). Memoirs and poems dedicated to him. Moscow: Sam & Sam, 2018. P. 192–196, 226. 

 

Ian Probstein (May 2023). Walt Whitman. Song of Myself and other poems. Translation and Annotations by Ian Probstein. Introduction: 1)What have Whitman done: Whitman’s impact on Modern and Contemporary American Poetry. Pro et Contra. 2) History of Translation of Whitman’s poems into Russian. A Comparative analysis. Hannover, Germany: Seven Arts, 2023. https://www.lulu.com/de/shop/yan-probshtein/whitman/paperback/product-2z9wdg.html?page=1&pageSize=4

 

Dmitry Strotsev. War and Peace. Selected poems translated into English.  A bilingual edition of the poems by the Belarussian poet in exile, a winner of numerous international prizes. Edited by Marth Kelly and Ian Probstein. New York: TipTop Street, 2025. https://www.tiptopstreet.com/product-page/dmitri-strotsev-war-and-peace-selected-poems-1992-2023

Rae Armantrout (b. 1947). Go Figure. New and Selected Poems. Compiled, translated, and annotated by Ian Probstein. Introduction by Ian Probstein. Free Poetry: Cheboksary, Russian Federation, 2025. ISBN 978-5-6052256-2-1

 

Ian Probstein (July 2024). Gertrude Stein Stanzas in Meditation. Tel Aviv, Israel: Babel Publishing, 2024. Introduction, commentaries and translation. ISBN 978-965-93161-6-8 

 

Ian Probstein  (August 2024). Gertrude Stein Stanzas in Meditation. Introduction, commentaries and translation. (Cheboksary, RF: Free Press, 2024). Parallel publication.

 ISBN 978-5-6052256-2-1

 

Ian Probstein (June 2023). Polyphonic Verses. A book of poems. Oleh Fedorov Publishing: Kyiv, Ukraine, 2023. ISBN 978-617-7955-83-1.

Ian Probstein (June 2023). Jerome Rothenberg. Cruel Nirvana. Selected Poems. Cheboksary, Russian Federation: Free Poetry, 2023, in 2 vols. Translation into Russian.

ISBN 978-5-6040432-6-4

 

Links:

http://arcade.stanford.edu/content/charles-bernstein-time-and-line

http://lunchticket.org/the-horseshoe-finder/

http://jacket2.org/commentary/ian-probstein-mandelstam-stalin-epigram

http://intranslation.brooklynrail.org/russian/the-slate-ode

http://gefter.ru/archive/author/probstein
https://magazines.gorky.media/authors/p/yan-probshtejn
http://www.netslova.ru/probstein/
http://www.litkarta.ru/world/usa/persons/probshtein-ya/