Ilya Kaminsky
@ilyakaminsky.bsky.social
📤 5285
📥 245
📝 97
www.IlyaKaminsky.com
reposted by
Ilya Kaminsky
JS
about 1 month ago
War on immigrants who probably fled countries where the U.S. started wars
add a skeleton here at some point
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1/2 Hello from Odesa, Ukraine, friends. An intense 24hours here, ranging from sleepless night of bombardments to a wondrous meeting of poetry with kids at our Poetry Studio (
poemsnotbombs.org
) here in Odesa.
2 months ago
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reposted by
Ilya Kaminsky
Sarabande Books
2 months ago
✨COVER REVEAL!✨ Poetry in translation collection LETTERS OF THE ALPHABET GO TO WAR by acclaimed Ukrainian writer Lesyk Panasiuk, translated by National Book Award finalist poet Ilya Kaminsky (
@ilyakaminsky.bsky.social
) and Katie Ferris is available January 2026. đź”— Preorder link in bio!
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Friends, I will be taking time away from social media for a while. Be well. Vacation Today I cannot receive you desperation, disappointment, tough legions of death. Come by some other time, never, and leave gallantly your business cards. Emil Botta, Tr. from Romanian by Liviu Georgesc
4 months ago
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4 months ago
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When our government is asking to spend millions of dollars on the unnecessary wall instead of very necessary health care plans, these words should be our rallying cry: "Move disability from the realm of medicine into that of political minorities" --Rosemarie Garland-Thomson
4 months ago
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4 months ago
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I went to college in 1997. My mother was a widow, a refugee, and couldn’t help me pay for it. There is no way I would be able to afford college if it was 2025 & the bill US Congress just passed was the law of the land. There are millions of people like me. What a shame.
4 months ago
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Everyone is tired of endless images of violence—but if I don’t post this, who will? Since you won’t find it in most Western news: Russia attacked Odesa again, yet another assault this week. “A court martial of a city,” a friend calls it.
5 months ago
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“ Write it. Write. In ordinary ink on ordinary paper: they were given no food, they all died of hunger. "All. How many? It's a big meadow….” Szymborska wrote this after WW2. What changed? Starving people is a war crime. Starving people is a war crime.
t.co/9Elc3lTWud
loading . . .
https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/hunger-camp-at-jaslo/
https://t.co/9Elc3lTWud
5 months ago
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Killing people in food lines is a war crime.
5 months ago
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Four words, and already we are in Kafka Territory: "Hey You! Papers, please?"
5 months ago
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Overheard: "Soon, bored with their i-phones, i-pods and other forms of "mini me" which they see as mirrors, and not forms of surveillance -- they will udnerstand: t o remember is to betray a regime built on forgetting. Memory itself becomes a form of rebellion."
5 months ago
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overheard: "In a life-time of a regime, a moment arrives when vulgarity isn’t a personal failing — it’s a state policy. Kitsch is armor against ethics; it’s collective anesthesia, pumped through every glowing screen and marching chant.
5 months ago
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5 months ago
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5 months ago
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Our Kids Poetry Studio in Odesa is in second year and kids, many of whom are refugees of war, are writing poems. If you read Ukrainian, here is the article:
vo.od.ua/rubrics/kult...
If you read English, here is a link:
poemsnotbombs.org
. Please consider support this work.
5 months ago
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Yesterday, Russia unleashed the biggest drone bombardment on Ukraine since war. People died. Meanwhile in Odesa, Ukraine, kids who are refugees of war continue to meet at the poetry studio and write poems—despite attacks on the city. Please support:
poemsnotbombs.org
6 months ago
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Overheard: “—This isn’t a time for decent people.” “—When is?”
6 months ago
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"Pain and suffering are a kind of currency passed from hand to hand until they reach someone who receives them but does not pass them on." --Simone Weil
6 months ago
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A writing prompt to distract you for a few minutes from the sadness of what we see around us: “Give to each emotion a personality, to each state of mind a soul” — Pessoa, 1931
6 months ago
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Friends: Katie & I were a part of a team working on a documentary about Viktor, deaf man in war zone in Ukraine. And now you have a chance to see it in NYC & speak to Viktor himself, who will visit from Ukraine: Sun., May 4 4:30 pm | LeFrak Theater at the American Museum of Natural History
6 months ago
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“We knew the war would come. Still, it caught us unprepared.” —Szymborska (from “The End and the Beginning”)
7 months ago
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"In our former lives, we have all been earth, stone, dew, wind, fire, moss, tree, insect, fish, turtle, bird and mammal" --Thich Nhat Hanh (quoting the Buddha)
7 months ago
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Orban, Putin, Erdogan….sounds familiar? Just saying:
7 months ago
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8 months ago
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Where do songs come from? From grief too great to banish —Heine
8 months ago
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"When we are a thousand miles away from poetry, we still participate in it by that sudden need to scream—the last stage of lyricism." --Emil Cioran
8 months ago
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It’s over a 100 years after the great Jewish crusader for free speech, Emma Goldman, was deported from USA for her speaking out. Yet history repeats itself. People shouldn’t be deported for speaking out. People shouldn’t be deported for speaking out. We mustn’t stay silent.
8 months ago
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1/2 While Trump just stopped all help to Ukraine—Putin’s army attacked Odesa tonight. There are casualties and thousands are sitting without electricity or heat in freezing weather. This is happening right now.
8 months ago
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reposted by
Ilya Kaminsky
Dr Joanna Clare Dobson
8 months ago
Good afternoon, sister, how is it In heaven? Quiet, yes? Without fear and night. We’re In the basement, talking Of you, sister. From a poem by Maryna, 14, written for a children's poetry project run by Ukrainian poet
@ilyakaminsky.bsky.social
. You can donate here
poemsnotbombs.org
#Ukraine
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Home
https://poemsnotbombs.org/
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reposted by
Ilya Kaminsky
Kristen Renee Miller
8 months ago
Apropos of *gestures wildly*... I'm prouder than ever to be publishing this important work by Lesyk Panasiuk, who is actively deployed in Ukraine. This bilingual edition of Lesyk's poetry is translated by Katie Farris &
@ilyakaminsky.bsky.social
. 🇺🇦
add a skeleton here at some point
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8 months ago
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8 months ago
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While Trump is expressing his admiration for Putin—Putin’s army just bombed a children’s hospital in Odesa, Ukraine.
9 months ago
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Friends & beloveds are worried abt what’s coming, from detentions to disruption of healthcare to denial of rights. Friends abroad are terrified too Know you are not alone. We are here for you—in any way we can Here is a link to a poem I go to when lost:
www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48501/...
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The Envoy of Mr. Cogito
Go where those others went to the dark boundary for the golden fleece of nothingness your last prize go upright among those who are on their knees among those with their backs turned and those topple...
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48501/the-envoy-of-mr-cogito?fbclid=IwY2xjawH5bG5leHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHUQP2Y-Z-pUZruUFb-vPG3j7ZVO83AZVnRs8Wdr88ULnCaXYPSe_FnBqoA_aem_ehk9mXQcxDmCx2M5Xa6NFw
10 months ago
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In case this is of use for friends in Los Angeles area:
10 months ago
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11 months ago
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Overheard: A bookish 7 year old arrives in the town library and standing on his toes demands to check out the book called "Ibid." which, he says loudly, "is cited by all kinds of primary sources" and his little fist lands on the library counter in satisfaction.
11 months ago
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Overheard: Tragedy of civilization is its inability to accept that at the end of the day, kindness is more important than justice. * Anna Swir tr by Milosz:
11 months ago
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Maria Wisława Anna Szymborska would be 101 years young this year, and younger in spirit. It’s been a tough year, if you need a holiday break, here is a 10 day book club I did on her work— all free, courtesy of The Public Space:
apublicspace.org/aps-together...
11 months ago
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reposted by
Ilya Kaminsky
Sarabande will publish Katie’s and my translations of Lesyk’s powerful poems about life in Bucha, Ukraine during Russian invasion. It’s available for pre-order now on their website:
12 months ago
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In the shape of a human body I am visiting the earth; The trees visit In shapes of trees. --Malena Morling
11 months ago
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“and placed my grief in the mouth of language the only thing that would grieve with me” —Lisel Mueller
11 months ago
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Since I thought I'd be dead by now everything I do is fucking perfect --Morgan Parker
11 months ago
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There is a voice that doesn't use words. Listen. ― Rumi
11 months ago
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“children who guard doorless houses their fleeing parents took the holy picture with them leaving black mark of their prayers on the wall.” --Venus Khoury Ghata (tr. Marilyn Hacker)
11 months ago
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Being on socials like X etc is standing in the middle of a crowd and hoping to get mugged only occasionally. But don’t we, as writers, always stand—as still as possible—in the middle of the crowd? B/c new words are bird in crowds. New rhythms. Somewhere between shouts: awe lurks, astonishment.
11 months ago
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I saw you, and poems came back to me. --Yannis Ritsos
11 months ago
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Friends in Boston, if you have a free evening and would like to hear some poems: I will be reading some new poems and translations of my own as well as honoring the memory of Jean Valentine and reading work from her New & Selected Poems:
libcal.library.harvard.edu/event/13157377
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WAX POETICS: Ilya Kaminsky reads Kaminsky & Valentine
The Woodberry Poetry Room invites you to Wax Poetics, a series that brings together our landmark AV collection with readings by contemporary poets. This season, Ilya Kaminsky will...
https://libcal.library.harvard.edu/event/13157377
11 months ago
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