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Ilya Kaminsky

@ilyakaminsky.bsky.social
5.4K followers 260 following 113 posts

www.IlyaKaminsky.com

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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Grateful to Maya C. Popa and Poem-A-Day for publishing this translation Katie Farris and I did of a piece by Lyudmyla Khersonsky, a wonderful poet from Odesa, Ukraine. I met Lyudmyla back in 1993 when I was still a sixteen year old in Odesa. She taught me English alphabet.
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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Who else, historically, made it difficult for people to pursue arts, religion, music, philosophy, education? Authoritarian regimes, in their various forms. Every. Single. One.
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Nicolas Robert @robertsnickc.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
This is how we live on earth, a flock of sparrows. The darkness, a magician, finds quarters behind our ears. We don’t know what life is, who makes it, the reality is thick with longing. We put it up to our lips and drink. ~ Ilya Kaminsky, ‘Dancing in Odessa’ (2004) #Painting by Miyake Wakō.
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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
1/2 Friends, while Russia keeps bombing Odesa Ukraine—as recently as last night—the city’s kids continue to write poems at Odesa Poetry Studio. So many of you have supported this project, so I wanted to share: young poet Mikhailo Solovey, is the recipient of Ukrainian Presidential Scholarship
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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
Friends, please contact your representatives and express outrage at this violation of human rights:
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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · 11/04/2026
Writers for Democratic Action event is happening right now on zoom: Major Jackson, Valzhyna Mort, Askold Melnyczuk, Robin Davidson, Ilya Kaminsky, Jo-Ann Mort, Peter Balakian, Roberto Tejada, and Carolyn Forché - 3pm Eastern Time, April 11: zoom.us/meeting/regi...
zoom.us
Welcome! You are invited to join a meeting: Writers for Democratic Action presents Poets Against Voter Suppression. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the meeting.
Please join us during National Poetry Month for an hour reading of poems honoring democracy, in protest against voter suppression and the SAVE Act. Featuring poets Peter Balakian, Robin Davidson, Car...
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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · 21/03/2026
Friends, today is what they call World Poetry Day. We will hold a zoom fundraiser event today for Kid’s Poetry Studio in Odesa, Ukraine. Here is a link to more info: www.spotfund.com/story/6b9ed1...
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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · 17/03/2026
1/5 www.spotfund.com/story/6b9ed1...
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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · 24/01/2026
This week “Letters of the Alphabet Go to War” by Lesyk Panasiuk, a book of poems that Katie Farris & I translated from Ukrainian is out from the wonderful Sarabande Books Lesyk is from Bucha, Ukraine, where some of the worst atrocities of this century took place. sarabandebooks.org/all-titles/p...
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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · 20/01/2026
Here is a new poem. Already revised, alas. But for what it’s worth: www.newyorker.com/magazine/202... Many thanks to Jeff Shotts and Kevin Young.
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Rachel Wright @rachelwrighting.com · 19/01/2026
“I saw my people lean— not toward hope but toward each other.” —Ilya Kaminsky
newyorker.com
“Psalm for the Slightly Tilted”
“This is not / a good year. / But it has / witnesses.”
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Sarabande Books @sarabandebooks.bsky.social · 13/01/2026
✨ LETTERS OF THE ALPHABET GO TO WAR by Lesyk Panasiuk, trans. by Ilya Kaminsky & Katie Farris (Jan 20), was praised by World Literature Today (@worldlittoday.bsky.social) as "modernly, and terrifyingly, Kafkaesque." Read this timely + essential collection! www.sarabandebooks.org/all-titles/p...
Ivory background with black quote marks in the upper left and lower right hand corner. The white Sarabande logo is in the upper right. To the lower left is an image of the book LETTERS OF THE ALPHABET GO TO WAR. The text quoted in the center reads: "...The imagery is modernly, and terrifyingly, Kafkaesque. The poem’s brevity, nonetheless, personifies another horrifying reality faced by Ukrainians each and every day: how quickly war unravels lives and routines, and how drastically it reshapes an individual. - Nicole Yurcaba, World Literature Today"
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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · 08/01/2026
They killed a young poet on a street while a university in Texas forbids teaching Plato (among other things), and president can’t stop talking about buying an island that has no desire to be sold. That was the first week of the year in a strange country getting stranger by the hour, my Horatio.
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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · 07/09/2025
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.
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Sarabande Books @sarabandebooks.bsky.social · 03/09/2025
✨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. 🔗 Preorder link in bio!
Dark navy blue background background. A white Sarabande Books logo is located in the lower right corner. An image of the book jacket is center left. Above the jacket cover it reads, “Poetry,” and below it reads, “Available January 2026.” To the right of the jacket is the quote: “Panasiuk uses language as a living character [...] The poems are full of visceral imagery, evoking the emotional experience of war…” —The Library Journal, starred review
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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
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
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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · 09/07/2025
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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · 08/07/2025
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
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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · 04/07/2025
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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · 03/07/2025
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.
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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · 20/06/2025
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.
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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · 17/06/2025
“ 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
t.co
https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/hunger-camp-at-jaslo/
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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · 17/06/2025
Killing people in food lines is a war crime.
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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · 14/06/2025
Four words, and already we are in Kafka Territory: "Hey You! Papers, please?"
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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · 14/06/2025
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."
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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · 14/06/2025
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.
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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · 02/06/2025
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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · 30/05/2025
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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · 29/05/2025
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.
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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · 19/05/2025
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
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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · 12/05/2025
Overheard: “—This isn’t a time for decent people.” “—When is?”
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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · 11/05/2025
"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
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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · 03/05/2025
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
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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · 30/04/2025
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
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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · 25/04/2025
“We knew the war would come. Still, it caught us unprepared.” —Szymborska (from “The End and the Beginning”)
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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · 18/04/2025
"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)
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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · 17/04/2025
Orban, Putin, Erdogan….sounds familiar? Just saying:
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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · 27/03/2025
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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · 11/03/2025
Where do songs come from? From grief too great to banish —Heine
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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · 10/03/2025
"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
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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · 09/03/2025
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.
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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · 04/03/2025
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.
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Dr Joanna Clare Dobson @joannacdobson.bsky.social · 01/03/2025
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
poemsnotbombs.org
Home
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Kristen Renee Miller @kristenmiller.bsky.social · 02/03/2025
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. 🇺🇦
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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · 26/02/2025
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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · 19/02/2025
While Trump is expressing his admiration for Putin—Putin’s army just bombed a children’s hospital in Odesa, Ukraine.
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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · 19/01/2025
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/...
poetryfoundation.org
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...
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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · 09/01/2025
In case this is of use for friends in Los Angeles area:
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