Poet, editor, literary curator, literary critic

Born in 1986

Since beginning his literary career in 2008, Denis Larionov has sought to push the conventional boundaries of literature and literary criticism. As a poet and curator, he has worked extensively with electronic musicians (PIEZO, Alex Pleninger, Sergey Kasich) and academic composers (Sergey Nevskiy, Kirill Shirokov). He has also tried to get the conversation about contemporary literature (especially poetry) out into the open. While working in the Department of Contemporary Russian Literature at the Russian State Humanities University (РГГУ), he lectured on Russian poetry of the 1930s-2020s and its cultural and political connections with Soviet and post-Soviet philosophy and cinematography.

In 2010 he published numerous essays, reviews and articles on contemporary literary processes, poetry/prose writers (Mikhail Shishkin, Nikolai Kononov, Alexey Parshikov, Yuriy Leiderman, Yevgeny Kharitonov, etc.) and on the connections between literature and cinema (e.g. B. in the cinema by Kira Muratova). LGBTQ literature is of particular interest to him. He defended my master's thesis and wrote two articles on Evgeniy Kharitonov (1941-1981), a late Soviet writer of gay literature, and produced a series of interviews with contemporary poets on gender issues in literature (https://magazines.gorky.media/nlo/2018/1/net-nevazhnogo.html).

In 2011, together with colleagues, he organized Igitur, a discussion series on contemporary literature. At these events they analyzed poems by Hamdam Zakirov, Yuriy Leiderman, Polina Barskova, Galina Rymbu, Alexey Prokopiev and other Russian poets from different countries and regions.

In 2019, Irina Prokhorova invited him to work as a curator and editor of a series of fiction books in the New Literary Observer. There he published books by Alla Gorbunova, Oksana Vasyakina, Linor Goralik, Lev Rubinstein, A. Nune and others.Denis Larionov has published two volumes of poetry: Death of a Student (2013) and You Will Never Be Overtaken by This Movement (2018).

In his poetry he tries to combine a complex metaphorical perspective (inspired by Alexey Parshikov and Arkady Dragomoshenko) and a social and cultural analysis of human and non-human life forms in today's world. Body and corporeality are the main poetic concepts in his lyrics. As part of the "VERSschmuggel" project by the House of Poetry (2015), he translated some texts by the German poet Daniel Falb.

Education

2007-2012 Russian State Social University (Social Psychologist)

2012-2014 Russian State University of Humanities (Russian Anthropological School, MA)

2014-2019 Postgraduate courses at the Institute of Philosophy (Aesthetics)

Artistic activities

2008-2009 Participant of the VersLibre Festival (Moscow, St. Petersburg)

2010-2015 Participant of the festival of contemporary poetry, sound and visual art Poetronica

2012-2018 Curator of the literary event series Igitur (with Polina Barskova, Yurii Leiderman, Hamdam Zakirov, Sergey Zavyalov and many other guests)

2013          Death of a Student (first volume of poetry; shortlisted for Andrey Beliy's Award (2013)

2015          Participant of the German-Russian poetry project "VERSschmuggel" (with the support of the Goethe-Institut)

2018          You'll Never Be Overtaken By This Movement (Second Book Of Poetry)

Educational activities

2013          Workshop "Literary Criticism and Poetry Text"

2016          Gesture and lyrical text from Andrey Beliy to Evgeniy Kharitonov (a public lecture in Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod)

2017-2019 Assistant at the Department of Contemporary Russian Literature (Russian State University of Humanities)

2019-2022 Lecturer in the Department of Contemporary Russian Literature (Russian State University of Humanities)

Jury activities

2013-2018 Creator of the poetry prize Difference (laureates: Oleg Yuriev, Vladimir Aristov, Polina Andrukovitch, Lida Yusupova, etc.)

2014-2017;

2020-2021 Appointer of the Arkadiy Dragomoshenko Prize

2016-2019 Committee member for the Andrey Beliy Award

Activities as a critic

2010-2021 Literary critic of the "New Literary Observer"

2011-2018 Literary critic and interviewer for "Lekhaim"

2011-2012 Literary critic for "Open Space"

2012-2017 Literary critic and interviewer "Colta"

Editorial activities

2014-2018 Co-editor of “L5”, a contemporary poetry website

2019-2022 Editor and creative curator of the "New Literary Observer" (series "Artistic Literature" and "Letters of a Russian Traveller")