Deaf Republic

Starred review from February 1, 2019

Kaminsky (Dancing in Odessa) has done honorable work in poetry as a collaborative translator and perhaps most visibly as the coeditor of The Ecco Anthology of International Poetry, but his poetry has not loomed large until now. Born in the former Soviet Union and himself deaf, Kaminsky has created a haunting and almost indescribable testament about some of the darkest places of the human spirit. Part closet drama, part long narrative poem, this work uses deafness and idiosyncratic sign language to convey shifting meanings of awareness, rebellion, otherness, and silence as he spins the interlocking stories of a deaf boy, a young married couple, and an intrepid middle-aged woman puppeteer, who is the incendiary force in a fitful resistance to pointless, brutal repression in an unnamed country. Kaminsky has lived in the United States long enough that his rhythms and cadences sit securely in English; many of his images are striking and memorable, although the story he tells is far from reassuring. VERDICT The product of 15 years of meditation, this chilling work--an important warning about the forces of repression and a quiet salute to the courage of the few who resist--heralds the maturity of an important voice in world poetry.--Graham Christian, formerly with Andover-Harvard Theological Lib., Cambridge, MA

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from March 1, 2019
Born in Ukraine during the Soviet era, Kaminsky endured a childhood bout with mumps that led to a significant reduction in hearing. His family then migrated to the U.S., seeking political asylum, and the poet began composing lyrics in English, a language no one in his family could understand. These biographical facts inform Kaminsky's stunning second book, which follows the award-winning Dancing in Odessa (2004) and is arranged like a play in two acts. Kaminsky weaves together the stories of the townspeople of Vasenka after a deaf boy is killed by military personnel, and the entire town develops deafness and invents a sign language to circumvent authorities ("when patrols march, we sit on our hands"). Kaminsky introduces two central characters, Sonya and Alfonso, as soft-eyed newlyweds ("I don't know anything about you?except the spray of freckles on your shoulders!"), and portrays the persistent military occupation with disorienting and dreamlike lyrics: "the crowd of women flees inside the nostrils of searchlights." The result is at once intimate and sensual but also poignant and timely, with one speaker noting, "I see the blue canary of my country / pick breadcrumbs from each citizen's eyes."(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)