en

10698

Logo lyrikline pure Logo lyrikline claim
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
all results
  • Contact
  • Partners
  • Donation
  • deutsch
  • english
  • français
  • slovenščina
  • العربية
  • русский
  • español
  • português
  • 中文
  • POETS
    • A-Z 
      • A
      • B
      • C
      • D
      • E
      • F
      • G
      • H
      • I
      • J
      • K
      • L
      • M
      • N
      • O
      • P
      • Q
      • R
      • S
      • T
      • U
      • V
      • W
      • X
      • Y
      • Z
    • by languages 
      • afrikaans
        albanian
        amharic
        arabic
        armenian
        basque
        belarusian
        bengali
        bosnian
        breton
        bulgarian
        burmese
        catalan
        chinese
        cree
        croatian
        czech
        danish
        dutch
        english
        estonian
        finnish
        french
        galician
        georgian
        german
        greek
        gujarati
        hebrew
        hindi
        hungarian
        icelandic
        indonesian
        irish
        italian
        japanese
        kalaallisut
        kannada
        korean
        kurdish
        latvian
        lithuanian
        macedonian
        malay
        malayalam
        maltese
        marathi
        nepali
        northern sami
        norwegian
        oriya
        persian
        polish
        portuguese
        punjabi
        rhaeto-romance
        romanian
        russian
        scottish gaelic
        serbian
        shona
        sindhi
        sinhala
        slovak
        slovenian
        southern sami
        spanish
        swahili
        swedish
        tamil
        telugu
        tswana
        turkish
        ukrainian
        urdu
        uzbek
        vietnamese
        welsh
        xhosa
        yiddish
    • by countries 
      • Albania
        Algeria
        Andorra
        Angola
        Argentina
        Armenia
        Australia
        Austria
        Bahrain
        Bangladesh
        Belarus
        Belgium
        Bolivia
        Bosnia and Herzegovina
        Botswana
        Brazil
        Bulgaria
        Burundi
        Cambodia
        Canada
        Chile
        China
        Colombia
        Congo - Kinshasa
        Costa Rica
        Croatia
        Cuba
        Cyprus
        Czech Republic
        Côte d’Ivoire
        Denmark
        Dominican Republic
        Egypt
        Estonia
        Ethiopia
        Finland
        France
        Georgia
        Germany
        Ghana
        Greece
        Greenland
        Guatemala
        Guinea-Bissau
        Haiti
        Honduras
        Hungary
        Iceland
        India
        Indonesia
        Iran
        Iraq
        Ireland
        Israel
        Italy
        Jamaica
        Japan
        Kenya
        Kuwait
        Latvia
        Lebanon
        Libya
        Lithuania
        Luxembourg
        Macedonia
        Malawi
        Malaysia
        Malta
        Martinique
        Mexico
        Moldova
        Montenegro
        Morocco
        Mozambique
        Myanmar [Burma]
        Netherlands
        New Zealand
        Nigeria
        Norway
        Oman
        Pakistan
        Palestinian Territories
        Paraguay
        Peru
        Poland
        Portugal
        Puerto Rico
        Romania
        Russia
        Saint Lucia
        Saudi Arabia
        Senegal
        Serbia
        Singapore
        Slovakia
        Slovenia
        South Africa
        South Korea
        Spain
        Sri Lanka
        Sweden
        Switzerland
        Syria
        São Tomé and Príncipe
        Taiwan
        Trinidad and Tobago
        Tunisia
        Turkey
        Ukraine
        United Arab Emirates
        United Kingdom
        United States
        Uruguay
        Uzbekistan
        Venezuela
        Vietnam
        Yemen
        Zambia
        Zimbabwe
  • POEMS
    • by languages 
      • afrikaans
        albanian
        amharic
        arabic
        arawak
        armenian
        basque
        belarusian
        bengali
        bosnian
        breton
        bulgarian
        burmese
        catalan
        chinese
        cree
        croatian
        czech
        danish
        dutch
        english
        estonian
        finnish
        french
        galician
        georgian
        german
        greek
        gujarati
        hebrew
        hindi
        hungarian
        icelandic
        indonesian
        irish
        italian
        japanese
        kalaallisut
        kannada
        korean
        kurdish
        latvian
        lithuanian
        lushai
        macedonian
        malay
        malayalam
        maltese
        maori
        marathi
        nepali
        northern sami
        norwegian
        oriya
        persian
        polish
        portuguese
        punjabi
        rhaeto-romance
        romanian
        romany
        russian
        scottish gaelic
        serbian
        shona
        sindhi
        sinhala
        slovak
        slovenian
        sorbian language
        southern sami
        spanish
        swahili
        swedish
        tamil
        telugu
        tswana
        tumbuka
        turkish
        ukrainian
        urdu
        uzbek
        vietnamese
        welsh
        western frisian
        xhosa
        yiddish
    • in translation 
      • abkhazian
        afar
        afrikaans
        albanian
        arabic
        araucanian
        armenian
        assamese
        basque
        belarusian
        bengali
        berber
        bosnian
        breton
        bulgarian
        buriat
        catalan
        chechen
        chinese
        chuvash
        corsican
        croatian
        czech
        danish
        duala
        dutch
        english
        esperanto
        estonian
        finnish
        french
        galician
        georgian
        german
        greek
        gujarati
        haitian
        hebrew
        hindi
        hungarian
        icelandic
        indonesian
        irish
        italian
        japanese
        kannada
        kashmiri
        kazakh
        kirghiz
        korean
        kumyk
        kurdish
        latin
        latvian
        lezghian
        lithuanian
        lushai
        macedonian
        malay
        malayalam
        maltese
        marathi
        mayan language
        mongolian
        nepali
        norwegian
        occitan
        oriya
        persian
        polish
        portuguese
        rhaeto-romance
        romanian
        romany
        russian
        sanskrit
        sardinian
        scots
        scottish gaelic
        serbian
        shona
        sindhi
        sinhala
        slovak
        slovenian
        sorbian language
        southern sami
        spanish
        swahili
        swedish
        swiss german
        tajik
        tamil
        telugu
        tetum
        turkish
        udmurt
        ukrainian
        urdu
        uzbek
        vietnamese
        welsh
        yakut
    • genres & aspects
      • experimental poetry
      • concrete poetry
      • sound poetry
      • visual poetry
      • poetry projects
      • series & cycles
      • poetry for children
      • humorous poetry
      • narrative poetry
      • poems on poetics
      • Ecopoetry / Nature writing
      • political poetry
      • erotic poetry
      • dialect
      • performance
      • with music / sound
      • spoken word / Rap
      • translingual / hybrid / Pidgin
    • poetic forms & terms
      • ode
      • haiku / tanka
      • collage / montage
      • Dinggedicht
      • prose poem
      • rhymed stanza
      • renshi
      • sestina
      • sonnet
      • terza rima
      • villanelle
      • ghazal
      • ballad
    • issues
      • society
        • identity (collective)
        • traditions
        • homeland
        • cities & urban life
        • history
        • politics
        • war
        • exile
        • economy
        • social critique / cultural criticism
      • life & relationship
        • family
          • birth
          • child
          • mother
          • father
        • infancy & youth
        • age
        • memory
        • identity (personal)
        • gender & sexuality
          • woman
          • man
          • sex & eroticism
          • homosexuality
        • friendship
        • love
        • marriage
        • relationship conflict
        • work
        • illness
        • body
        • violence
        • loss & separation
        • death & grief
        • funeral
        • religion & sprituality
        • Dream
        • travel
        • time
        • eating & drinking
        • alcohol & drugs
      • culture & science
        • architecture & design
        • poetry & poets
        • art & painting
        • literature & reading
        • fairy-tales & legends
        • medicine & science
        • music
        • mythology
        • philosophy
        • photography & film
        • popular culture
        • language
        • theater & dance
        • writing (poetry)
      • nature
        • spring
        • summer
        • fall
        • winter
        • landscape
        • water
        • animals
        • plants
    • Rhythmic Patterns
      • Parlando
      • Cadence
      • Variable Foot
      • Sprung Rhythm
      • Syncopations
      • Rubato
      • Permutations
      • Gestic rhythm (= Stressed Enjambements)
      • Cut-ups
      • Ellipses
      • Syllabic decompositions
      • Lettristic Decomposition
  • NEW
    • Poems
    • Poets
    • Translations
Login
  •  

Ilya Kaminsky

10 AM Bombardment

  • 1 Gunshot | Translations: de
  • 2 Alfonso in Snow | Translations: de
  • 3 Still Newlyweds | Translations: de
  • 4 Firing Squad | Translations: de
  • 5 Lullaby | Translations: de
  • 6 While the Child Sleeps, Sonya Undresses | Translations: debe
  • 7 A Cigarette | Translations: debe
  • 8 We Lived Happily During the War | Translations: beru
  • 9 That Map of Bone and Opened Valves | Translations: be
  • 10 While Helicopters Circle, Sonya and Alfonso Drink in the Shower
  • 11 Of Weddings Before the War | Translations: be
  • 12 Mother Throws Milk Bottles at Soldiers
  • 13 10 AM Bombardment
  • 14 Between Arrests
  • 15 [I kissed a woman]
  • 16 To Live
  • 17 Elegy | Translations: trrulv
  • 18 Widower Alfonso
  • 19 A Child in His Arms
  • 20 Traffic
Language: english
  • play
  • pause
Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.

10 AM Bombardment
(Alfonso)

I saw the blue canary of our country
Pick breadcrumbs from each citizen’s eyes—
running up Vasenka street, our clothes in a pillowcase—
I looked for a man who looks
exactly like me – so I could give him my Sonya, my name, my shirt—

I run from a bus burst like an intestine in the sun, I saw—
Madame Gornik paint icons sold at morning, saw
Veronina, mother of two boys
stole tomato sandwiches from two soldiers
as the soldiers tore Pasha’s wife from her bed like a door off the bus—

It has began: they climbed the trolleys
at the thief market, breaking all
their moments in half. And Petrovich yelled I am so fucking beautiful I cannot stand it.
And the army officers
in clanging trolleys aimed at neighbors’ faces, in their ears,
and the army officer yelled: Boys! Girls!
Take your partner two steps! Shoot.

It has began: I saw how the blue canary of my country
picked breadcrumbs from each citizen’s ears—
picked breadcrumbs from each citizen’s eyes—
The snow left the earth and fell straight up as it should—
To have a country, so important—
to run into walls, into streetlights, into loved ones, as one should—
Watch their legs as they run and fall—
I have seen the blue canary of my country—
Watch their legs as they run and fall.

© Ilya Kaminsky
Audio production: Literaturwerkstatt Berlin, 2013

Translations:

previous poem
   (Mother Throws Milk...)
13 / 20
next poem
(Between Arrests)   
listen to all poems

Ilya Kaminsky

photo © Cybele Knowles
* 18.04.1977, Odessa, Ukraine
lives in: San Diego, California, United States

Ilya Kaminsky was born in 1977 in Odessa in the Ukraine and started writing poems even as a youth in the Soviet Union. In 1993 he emigrated to the USA, where his family was granted asylum. At first he continued writing in Russian there, but in 2002 published his first collection of poems written in English, Musica Humana. His collection Dancing in Odessa (2004) earned him several prizes including the Metcalf Award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Whiting Writers’ Award, the Lannan Fellowship.
Kaminsky is among other things the editor in chief of Poetry International and the poetry editor of Words Without Borders. He is also the director of the Harriet Monroe Poetry Institute in Chicago and works as a translator from the Russian. His poetry, which has been translated into several different languages, has gained him a great amount of attention around the world. He lives in San Diego, California.

 photo © Mirko Lux
Publications
  • Musica Humana

    Montpelier, Vermont: Chapiteau Press, 2002

  • Dancing in Odessa

    North Adams, Massachusetts: Tupelo Press, 2004

  • Ecco Anthology of International Poetry

    edited by Ilya Kaminsky and Susan Harris

    New York: Harper Collins, 2010

  • Deaf Republic

    Minneapolis, Minnesota: Graywolf, 2019

Awards
  • 2001 Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship

  • 2002 The Dorset Prize

  • 2005 American Academy of Arts and Letters Metcalf Award

  • 2005 ForeWord (magazine) Book of the Year Award in Poetry

  • 2005 Whiting Writers' Award

  • 2008 Lannan Literary Fellowship

  • 2018 Guggenheim Fellowship

  • 2019 Academy of American Poets fellowship

Links
  • Ilya Kaminsky's Homepage

    Website
  • Ilya Kaminsky @ The New Yorker

    Many poems from 'Deaf Republic', read by the author and with animated illustrations.

    Website
  • Ilya Kaminsky @ Graywolf Press

    Website
  • Ilya Kaminsky @ Wikipedia

    Website

Remember poem / Add to List

all public lists

Poem already on my list

If you want to remember or list a poem, become a community member.

Login/Register now
more poets from United States more poems in english Translations into english Ilya Kaminsky as a translator

Random poem

PUSH!

gedicht page complete: (0,110s)
  • About
  • Links
  • Blog
  • Newsletter
  • Produced by
  • privacy
lyrikline is created by Literaturwerkstatt Berlin in cooperation with its international network of lyrikline partners