On September 30, 2022, at 5:00 p.m., Dr. Rosina Neginsky will present her newest poetry book, Longings. Sponsored by the Cliff Dwellers Club in Chicago, the event will also include Chicago-based Ukranian artist, Lyubok Momot, who provided the cover art for the book and inspired some of Neginsky's poems.
Known for her scholarly work on the late-19th and early-20th century Symbolist movement in art and literature, Neginsky sees Momot as a 21st century Symbolist painter, because the artwork "embodies not only the stunning technique and imagination, but also the depth and hidden suggestive meaning, so typical for artists of the turn of the 20th century."
Neginsky's Longings contains 39 poems, meditations on arts, literature, music, love, and life. Momot's artwork provides a jumping off point from which Neginsky explores what is most important to her: the complexity of a human soul, love, death, hope, and pain.
"This collection demonstrates that life is a springboard for art and sometimes vice-versa," Neginsky says. "All forms of art reveal to a human eye life and its different sides, which are always present, but not always visible and not always sensed by the majority of people blinded and numbed by the dulling effects of life."
The role of a true artist is to wake us up and remind us about our humanity. Richard Reeder, author of the novel The Curious Odyssey of Rudolph Bloom stresses how Neginsky's poetry uses powerful images to encourage reader response. "Rosina Neginsky's words evoke images that dazzle the mind and stir the soul," he says. "The poems in Longings linger with you long after they are read or heard. This is poetry for the ages. It is a truly masterful collection."
Neginsky is the author of two bilingual books of poetry in Russian and English and a book of poetry in French and English. She is also an accomplished scholar, publishing Salome: The Image of a Woman Who Never Was and editing books about the Symbolist Movement. She has won the University of Illinois' prestigious University Scholar award as well.
For more information about the author, Longings, and her presentation, please go to her website. The presentation will occur at 200 S. Michigan Avenue in Chicago.