Diary: Of War And Its Horror

Ilya Kaminsky @ilya_poet Jun 29

Friends: Anastasia Afanasieva is a brilliant poet from Kharkiv, Ukraine, who survived for many days in basement hiding from bombs and is now a refugee. Her niece tells me Anastasia is still struggling to make ends meet.

Might you help her Go Fund Me campaign?

Ilya Kaminsky @ilya_poet Apr 24

In addition to all other horror, Russians just bombed the cemetery where my adopted grandmother, Natalia, is buried.

She바카라�s Ukrainian woman who hid my Jewish father during World War Two when Odesa was occupied.

She hid him for the long years of war. They바카라�re bombing her cemetery

Ilya Kaminsky @ilya_poet Apr 24

What do you do, when in your 80s, after a long Covid you바카라�re learning to sit & walk again & meanwhile, an empire-next-door announces
its plans to bomb your city b/c it 바카라�needs a corridor바카라� to another territory (that it stole 30 yrs ago from a neighboring country)?

Such questions.

Ilya Kaminsky @ilya_poet Apr 1

바카라�I am unable to read anything except the news바카라�so don바카라�t ask me about my writing. My attitude toward the Russian language has not
changed. No, I don바카라�t speak the language of the occupiers of my country. It is they who stole my language.바카라�

바카라�Vadim Landa, a writer from Odesa

Ilya Kaminsky @ilya_poet Dec 5

Halyna Kruk, translated from Ukrainian by
Amelia Glaser and Yuliya Ilchuk:
the right hemisphere can바카라�t see the trees for
the forest
the left hemisphere can바카라�t see the forest for
the trees
right and left, right and left
a human walks in the woods like an echo, lost
in thought, distracted
some bullet moves with its own velocity
it바카라�s own trajectory, let loose
in a right or a left hemisphere. somebody바카라�s.
the earth바카라�s.

Ilya Kaminsky @ilya_poet Dec 5

Ilya Kaminsky @ilya_poet Jun 29

바카라�Morning: they are bombing the city. Night: I am editing my poems. Morning: bombardments again.바카라�

바카라�so grateful to LA Review of Book for publishing conversations with Ukrainian poets @katiefar and I did:

Ilya Kaminsky @ilya_poet Jun 14

In Odesa, Ukraine, it is a vacation season.

In Odesa, Ukraine, it is a war season.

So people do sunbathing at the barricades.

Thanks to Sergey Naumovich for the photo:

(This appeared in the print edition as "War Diary")

Ilya Kaminsky holds the Bourne Chair in Poetry at Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta. He is the author of Deaf Republic and Dancing in Odesa