2024 First-Year MFA Poetry Reading

Poetry readings from Daryna Gladun, Helen Quah, Rina Shamilov, and Adriana Toledano Kolteniuk in Decio Hall:
Daryna Gladun is a Ukrainian poet, translator, artist, and researcher from Bucha (born in Khmelnytskyi). She is the author of five poetry collections (in Ukrainian): «Рубати дерево» [To Chop the tree] (2017), the winner of Smoloskyp Literary Prize and Oles Honchar International Ukrainian-German Literary Prize; «Із тіні красивих червоних хлопчиків» [From the shadow of handsome red boys] (2020), named one of the best poetry books of 2020 by PEN Ukraine; «Радіо «Війна» [Radio "War"] (2022), translated into Polish by Janusz Radwański, and into Montenegrin by Anđela Radovanović; into German by Angela Huber, «Війна не почнеться завтра» [The war doesn't start tomorrow] (2023), translated into Swedish by Mikael Nydahl. Co-author with Lesyk Panasiuk of the poetry collection «Портрет сонця в бомбосховищі» [Portrait of the sun in the bomb shelter] (2023), translated into Polish by Aneta Kamińska. Co-author of children's books about prominent Ukrainian women «Це теж зробила вона» [She also made it] (2018). Her poems and short stories have been translated into dozens of languages and published in numerous Ukrainian and International magazines and anthologies.
Helen Quah is a British poet and doctor who has lived and worked in London for the last ten years. Interested in the surreal, political and genre-shifting poetry of writers such as Kim Hyesoon, Bhanu Kapil and Don Mee Choi, her own work has appeared in British publications such as The Rialto, Magma, and The Poetry Review. She is a 2023 Eric Gregory Award recipient for her debut chapbook Dog Woman, which was published in June 2022 with Out-Spoken Press, inspired by the work of Portuguese painter Paula Rego.
Rina Shamilov is a poet from Brooklyn, New York, who is excited to leave the city for scenic Indiana. Her poetry explores self, grief, family, and movement, and she enjoys confronting her fears and pains through words. An English Literature and Art History student, she has won The Dean David and Sarrah Mirsky Memorial Award for Creative Writing - Short Story and the Sara T. Herschfus Memorial Award for Excellence in English from her undergrad. Her nonfiction essays have appeared in The Forward, NewVoices, and Lilith. She is an editor for MAYDAY and an MFA candidate at Notre Dame.
Adriana Toledano Kolteniuk is a writer from Mexico City who spent her formative years in the US and has been a bilingual, bi-cultural bridge-builder since. She obtained her degree in English Literature from UNAM and then spent 8 years in Chiapas, where she (re)discovered her passion for wild nature, community building, and social justice. She considers herself an ecofeminist thinker who creates verbal-affective ecosystems from a queer, neurodivergent, anti-colonial lens. Adriana is a recipient of the Fulbright-García Robles Grant for Mexican citizens to pursue postgraduate studies in the US.