Ilya Kaminsky

Brings together two intimate, reflective essays by two acclaimed poets, Ilya Kaminsky and Piotr Florczyck, as they revisit their hometowns of Odesa and Kraków, exploring the complexities of return, memory, and identity. Within, Without: On Two Cities presents two essays by Eastern European–born poets and translators, Ilya Kaminsky and Piotr Florczyk, now based in the United States. Revisiting their respective hometowns—Odesa and Kraków—they grapple with questions of history, identity, and belonging. What does it mean for an immigrant or refugee to return? Can one ever truly go back to a homeland that has since been transformed? Kaminsky and Florczyk chart a path forward by embracing the complexities of their transnational and translingual identities, as artists and as human beings.

One of Latin American's most important poets of the twentieth century, Juan Gelman (1930-2014 spent much of his life in exile from his native Argentina during the Dirty War. A significant, seldom-acknowledged portion of Gelman's poetry dealt with Jewish themes. He established a dialogue across time with Santa Teresa de Ávila and San Juan de la Cruz, the sixteenth-century Spanish mystical poets whose ancestry was Jewish. He rewrote poetic portions of the Bible as well as medieval Hebrew poetry. Gelman even taught himself Ladino, the language of Sephardic Jews, and wrote a volume of poems in it. In this bilingual volume, celebrated scholar Ilan Stavans retraces Gelman's admiration for these poetic ancestors, translating into English his Jewish oeuvre by carefully maintaining the Hebrew, Spanish, and Ladino echoes of the originals. The result is at once historically accurate and artistically exhilarating, repositioning Gelman as a major Jewish writer of the last century.

A searing testament to poetry’s power to define and defy injustice, from iconic writer-activist Serhiy Zhadan Finalist for the PEN America Literary Award for Poetry in Translation “Reading these words now is enough to make one’s breath catch. [Ukraine’s western partners] do not see themselves as members of its funeral processions; they do not routinely line the streets and kneel before passing coffins.”—Linda Kinstler, Times Literary Supplement Since the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014, the Ukrainian poet Serhiy Zhadan has brought international attention to his country’s struggle through his unflinching poetry of witness. In this searing testament to poetry’s power to define and defy injustice, Zhadan honors the memory of the lost and addresses the living, inviting us to consider what language can offer to a country threatened with extinction. Young lovers, marginalized outsiders, and ordinary citizens pulse with life in a composite portrait of a people newly unified by extremity. Even in the midst of enemy fire, Zhadan’s lyrical monuments, forged entirely in wartime, beat with a subterranean thrum of hope. Translated by Virlana Tkacz and Wanda Phipps, and with a foreword by the poet Ilya Kaminsky, this selection of Zhadan’s poetry is an homage to the Ukrainian people, a forceful reckoning with the violence of the past and present, and an act of artistic imagination that breaks with trauma and charts a new future for Ukraine.

Ilya Kaminsky on runoilija, kriitikko ja kääntäjä. Hän syntyi Odessassa vuonna 1977. Kun Kaminsky oli 16-vuotias, hänen perheensä sai Yhdysvalloista turvapaikan. Kaminsky ei tuolloin puhunut englantia, mutta opittuaan kielen hän alkoi kirjoittaa runoja englanniksi. Kaminskyn esikoisteos, runokokoelma Dancing in Odessa (Tupelo Press 2004), kertoo Odessasta musiikin, mytologian ja kirjallisuuden kaupunkina. Runojen keskiössä on poika, joka Kaminskyn tavoin kuuroutuu lapsena ja muuttaa Yhdysvaltoihin. Siirtolaisuus on teoksen keskeisiä teemoja. Toinen tärkeä teema on kuurous, joka määrittää runominän kokemusta eri kaupungeista: Odessa on hiljainen kaupunki, kun taas New York täynnä ääniä, sillä siellä hän saa ensimmäistä kertaa kuulolaitteen.

I Dansa i Odessa löser Ilya Kaminsky upp tid och rum för att ge plats åt historien i vår nutid, att föra samman ryska klassiker med den samtida amerikanska poesin. Åtrå, konst, kärlek, och minne blandas i dikter som formas av såväl extas, myter och humor som de hågkomster från barndomens stad som förföljer författaren. Ilya Kaminsky är född 1977 av judiska föräldrar i Odessa i dåvarande Sovjetunionen. Efter förföljelser fick hans familj 1993 asyl i USA. Han debuterade med Dansa i Odessa och fick snart ett stort internationellt erkännande och utnämndes 2019 av BBC till en av 12 konstnärer som förändrat världen. På svenska är han sedan tidigare utgiven med De dövas republik. Sedan Rysslands invasion av Ukraina har Kaminsky enträget arbetat för att sprida ukrainska röster genom översättningar, uppläsningar, essäer, att sätta samman antologier och besök i sin födelsestad.

Described as 'a rich, reverberative dance with memories of a haunted city' (LA Times), the poems of the prize-winning debut Dancing in Odessa by Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic, draw on archetype, myth and Russian literary figures. Tightly realised domestic settings are invigorated with a contemporary relevance, humour and torment, and a distinctive, transcendent music. 'With his magical style in English, Kaminsky's poems in Dancing in Odessa seem like a literary counterpart to Chagall in which laws of gravity have been suspended and colors reassigned, but only to make everyday reality that much more indelible. His imagination is so transformative that we respond with equal measures of grief and exhilaration.' The American Academy of Arts and Letters'Dancing in Odessa by Ilya Kaminsky tops the list because he is one of those rarest of finds in this or any century, a writer who establishes what poetry can be.' The New York Times

När soldater i den ockuperade staden under en dockteaterföreställning avrättar en döv pojke blir skotten det sista som medborgarna hör. De har alla blivit döva och samordnar nu sitt uppror genom teckenspråk. I Ilya KaminskysDe dövas republik skildras de döva stadsbornas liv ständigt omgivna av hänsynslöst våld: det nygifta paret, anstiftaren till upproret och hennes dockteater, och flickorna som på dagarna lär ut teckenspråk och om nätterna lockar med soldater till deras död. Internationellt hyllade De dövas republik nominerades till National Book Award och prisades med National Jewish Book Award. Det är dikter som konfronterar vår tids grymheter och vår kollektiva tystnad inför dem.

BBC Radio 4 BOOK OF THE WEEKT. S. ELIOT PRIZE 2019 SHORTLISTFORWARD PRIZE 2019 SHORTLISTPOETRY BOOK SOCIETY CHOICE 2019The long-awaited new collection from Ilya Kaminsky: a remarkable parable in poems which asks us, what is silence? Deaf Republic opens in a time of political unrest in an occupied territory. It is uncertain where we are or when, in what country or during what conflict, but we come to recognise that these events are also happening here, right now. This astonishing parable in poems unfolds episodically like a play, its powerful narrative provoked by a tragic opening scene: when soldiers breaking up a protest kill a deaf boy, the gunshot becomes the last thing the citizens hear - in that moment, all have gone deaf. Inside this silence, their dissent becomes coordinated by sign language. The story then follows the private lives of townspeople encircled by public violence: a newly married couple, Alfonso and Sonya, expecting their child; the daring Momma Galya, instigating the insurgency from her puppet theatre; and Galya's puppeteers, covertly teaching signs by day and by night heroically luring soldiers one by one to their deaths behind the curtain. At once a love story, an elegy, and an urgent plea, Deaf Republic confronts our time's vicious atrocities and our collective silence in the face of them.

Finalist for the National Book Award - Finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Award - Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award - Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize - Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award - Winner of the National Jewish Book Award - Finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award - Finalist for the T. S. Eliot Prize - Finalist for the Forward Prize for Best CollectionIlya Kaminsky's astonishing parable in poems asks us, What is silence? Deaf Republic opens in an occupied country in a time of political unrest. When soldiers breaking up a protest kill a deaf boy, Petya, the gunshot becomes the last thing the citizens hear--they all have gone deaf, and their dissent becomes coordinated by sign language. The story follows the private lives of townspeople encircled by public violence: a newly married couple, Alfonso and Sonya, expecting a child; the brash Momma Galya, instigating the insurgency from her puppet theater; and Galya's girls, heroically teaching signing by day and by night luring soldiers one by one to their deaths behind the curtain. At once a love story, an elegy, and an urgent plea, Ilya Kaminsky's long-awaited Deaf Republic confronts our time's vicious atrocities and our collective silence in the face of them.

Ilya Kaminsky. Selected Poems: Bilingual Edition. Translated from English into Russian by Anastasia Afanasieva. - New York, Ailuros Publishing, 2012. - 85 с. ISBN 978-0-9838762-8-1 Илья Каминский. Музыка народов ветра избранные стихотворения / Перевод с английского Анастасии Афанасьевой. - New York, Ailuros Publishing, 2012. - 85 с. ISBN 978-0-9838762-8-1 Книга избранных стихотворений современного американского поэта русского происхождения. Билингвальное издание (на русском и английском языках). Редактор Елена Сунцова. Художник обложки Ирина Глебова. Бумажная версия книги доставляется в любую точку мира. PDF книги доступен для скачивания бесплатно на сайте издательства http: //www.elenasuntsova.com/kaminsky

In "The Ecco Anthology of International Poetry", introduced and edited by Ilya Kaminsky and Susan Harris, poetic visions from the 20th century will be reinforced and in many ways revised. Alongside renowned masters, there will be many new discoveries - internationally celebrated poets who have rarely, if ever, been translated into English. In conjunction with the organization Words Without Borders - an online haven for international literature and an ally to writers all over the world-Ecco presents a paperback anthology that will surely serve as a canonical touchstone in the field of poetics, bringing voices from afar to readers everywhere. As aptly put in Words Without Borders' mission statement, this collection also serves as part of 'the ultimate aim to introduce exciting international writing to the general and literary public - travelers, teachers, students, publishers, and a new generation of eclectic readers - by presenting international literature not as a static, elite phenomenon, but a portal through which to explore the world'.

Poetry. Winner of the 2002 Dorset Prize, and recipient of the Ruth Lilly Fellowship, Ilya Kaminsky is a recent Russian immigrant and rising poetic star. Despite the fact that he is a non-native speaker, Kaminksy's sense of rhythm and lyic surpasses that of most contemporary poets in the English language. This magical, musical book of poems draws readers into its unforgettable heart, and Carolyn Forché wrties simply "I'm in awe of his gifts."