Ilya Kaminsky
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Poetry

Ilya Kaminsky

Past Event: Monday, April 1, 2019

At Seattle Central Community College—Broadway Performance Hall

Ilya Kaminsky is a hard of hearing Russian-Jewish-American poet, critic, translator, and professor, whose latest collection, Deaf Republic (2019), is just out from Graywolf Press.

ASL interpretation and live captioning will be available for this event.

Ilya Kaminsky was born in the former Soviet Union city of Odessa. He lost most of his hearing at the age of four after a doctor misdiagnosed mumps as a cold, and his family was granted political asylum by the United States in 1993, settling in Rochester, New York.

After his father’s death in 1994, Kaminsky began to write poems in English. He explained in an interview with the Adirondack Review, “I chose English because no one in my family or friends knew it—no one I spoke to could read what I wrote. I myself did not know the language. It was a parallel reality, an insanely beautiful freedom. It still is.”

Kaminsky went on to earn a B.A. in political science at Georgetown University and a J.D. at the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law. With Paloma Capanna, he co-founded Poets for Peace, which sponsors poetry readings across the globe to support relief work. He has also worked as a clerk for the National Immigration Law Center and for Bay Area Legal Aid.

Kaminsky is the author of Dancing in Odessa (2004), which won the Tupelo Press Dorset Prize, the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Metcalf Award, and ForeWord Magazine’s Best Poetry Book of the Year award, and has been translated into French and Romanian. Traveling Musicians (2007) is a selection of his poems originally written in Russian. His most recent collection is Deaf Republic (2019).

Deaf Republic opens in an occupied country in a time of political unrest. When soldiers breaking up a protest kill a deaf boy, Petya, the gunshot becomes the last thing the citizens hear—all have gone deaf, and their dissent becomes coordinated by sign language. The story follows the private lives of townspeople encircled by public violence: a newly married couple, Alfonso and Sonya, expecting a child; the brash Momma Galya, instigating the insurgency from her puppet theater; and Galya’s girls, heroically teaching signs by day and by night luring soldiers one by one to their deaths behind the curtain. At once a love story, an elegy, and an urgent plea—Kaminsky’s long-awaited Deaf Republic confronts our time’s vicious atrocities and our collective silence in the face of them.

Kaminsky also co-edited, with Susan Harris, the Ecco Anthology of International Poetry (2010), and edited and co-translated Polina Barskova’s This Lamentable City (2010). He has also served as the editor of the online journal In Posse Review. Kaminsky’s honors include a Whiting Writers’ Award, the Milton Center’s Award for Excellence in Writing, the Florence Kahn Memorial Award, Poetry magazine’s Levinson Prize as well as their Ruth Lilly Fellowship, Philips Exeter Academy’s George Bennett Fellowship, and a Lannan Foundation fellowship. He lives in San Diego where he teaches in the M.F.A. program at San Diego State University.

Event Details

Seattle Central Community College—Broadway Performance Hall

1625 Broadway
Seattle, WA 98122

View directions.

Transportation & Parking

The Broadway Performance Hall is located at Seattle Central College’s main campus, in the heart of the vibrant Capitol Hill neighborhood.

Parking

Parking for visitors and event guests is available 24/7 at the Harvard Garage (1609 Harvard Ave.), which is operated by Seattle Central College. For rates, visit Seattle Central’s Public Parking & Transportation page. Metered street parking is also available in the area.

Public Transit

By bus: Metro buses 11, 49 and 60 all pass next to, or within a block of, both the Broadway Performance Hall and Erickson Theatre. Visit King County Metro Trip Planner to learn more about these and other nearby bus options.

By streetcar: Take the Broadway route to the stop at Broadway & Denny.

By light rail: The Capitol Hill Link station is located approximately one block north of the Broadway Performance Hall, and two blocks north of Erickson Theatre.

Accessibility

Open Captioning is an option for people who have hearing losses, where a captioning screen displaying the words that are spoken or sung is placed on stage. Please note: for events at Broadway Performance Hall, we appreciate a two-week advance notice to allow us time to secure captioning services.

Assisted Listening Devices (ALDs) are devices that people with hearing loss use in conjunction with their hearing device (hearing aids or cochlear implants). This season, Broadway Performance Hall has an FM assistive listening system, which transmits sound via radio waves. To pick up a headset, check one out at the box office on the main floor when you arrive.

Sign Language Interpretation is available upon request for Deaf, DeafBlind, and hard of hearing individuals. To make a request for ASL interpretation, please contact us at [email protected] or 206.621.2230×10. Please note: we appreciate a two-week advance notice to allow us time to secure interpretation.

Wheelchair Accessible Seating and Accessible Restrooms are available in all sections at our venues, and our venues are fully accessible to ticket holders with physical mobility concerns. Guide and service dogs are also welcome. Broadway Performance Hall is equipped with an elevator and has eight handicapped-accessible seats in the central section, and a ramp and handrail lead into the hall on the left side of the auditorium. For more venue details, click here.

We are pleased to offer these accessibility services at our venues, and they are provided at no additional cost to ticket holders. Please contact us with any questions and feedback about how we can be more accessible and inclusive. Our Patron Services Manager is available at [email protected], or Monday-Thursday from 10:00am – 5:00pm, and Fridays from 10:00am – 1:00pm, at 206.621.2230×10.

Sponsors

Opus Sponsor

Charles B. & Barbara Wright