A fellow poet recommended his work to me, and I have been reading his book, Dancing in Odessa. Here’s a poem from that book that I really like:
Envoi
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxYou will die on a boat from Yalta to Odessa.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx–a fortune teller, 1992
What ties me to this earth? In Massachusetts,
the birds force themselves into my lines–
the sea repeats itself, repeats, repeats.
I bless the boat from Yalta to Odessa
and bless each passenger, his bones, his genitals,
bless the sky inside his body,
the sky my medicine, the sky my country.
I bless the continent of gulls, the argument of their order.
The wind, my master
insists on the joy of poplars, swallows,– Continue reading “Ilya Kaminsky”