Deaf Republic (LA Times Book Prize Winner)

by Ilya Kaminsky

Overview

Finalist for the National Book Award • Finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Award • Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award • Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize • Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award • Winner of the National Jewish Book Award • Finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award • Finalist for the T. S. Eliot Prize • Finalist for the Forward Prize for Best Collection

Ilya Kaminsky’s astonishing parable in poems asks us, What is silence?

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—they 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 signing 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, Ilya Kaminsky’s long-awaited Deaf Republic confronts our time’s vicious atrocities and our collective silence in the face of them.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781555978310
Publisher:	Graywolf Press
Publication date:	03/05/2019
Pages:	80
Sales rank:	184,772
Product dimensions:	6.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.20(d)

About the Author

Ilya Kaminsky was born in the former Soviet Union. He is the author of a poetry collection, Dancing in Odessa, and coeditor of The Ecco Anthology of International Poetry. He was a 2014 finalist for the Neustadt International Prize for Literature.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

ACT ONE

The Townspeople Tell the Story of Sonya and Alfonso

 

Gunshot

Our country is the stage.

When soldiers march into town, public assemblies are officially prohibited. But today, neighbors flock to the piano music from Sonya and Alfonso's puppet show in Central Square. Some of us have climbed up into trees, others hide behind benches and telegraph poles.

When Petya, the deaf boy in the front row, sneezes, the sergeant puppet collapses, shrieking. He stands up again, snorts, shakes his fist at the laughing audience. An army jeep swerves into the square, disgorging its own Sergeant.

Disperse immediately!

Disperse immediately! the puppet mimics in a wooden falsetto.

Everyone freezes except Petya, who keeps giggling. Someone claps a hand over his mouth. The Sergeant turns toward the boy, raising his finger.

You!

You! the puppet raises a finger.

Sonya watches her puppet, the puppet watches the Sergeant, the Sergeant watches Sonya and Alfonso, but the rest of us watch Petya lean back, gather all the spit in his throat, and launch it at the Sergeant.

The sound we do not hear lifts the gulls off the water.

 

As Soldiers March, Alfonso Covers the Boy's Face
with a Newspaper

Fourteen people, most of us strangers,
watch Sonya kneel by Petya

shot in the middle of the street.
She picks up his spectacles shining like two coins, balances them on his nose.

Observe this moment
— how it convulses —

Snow falls and the dogs run into the streets like medics.

Fourteen of us watch:
Sonya kisses his forehead — her shout a hole

torn in the sky, it shimmers the park benches, porchlights.
We see in Sonya's open mouth

the nakedness
of a whole nation.

She stretches out
beside the little snowman napping in the middle of the street.

As picking up its belly the country runs.


Alfonso, in Snow

You are alive, I whisper to myself, therefore something in you listens.

Something runs down the street, falls, fails to get up.
I run etcetera with my legs and my hands behind
my pregnant wife etcetera down Vasenka Street I run it
only takes a few minutes etcetera to make a man.

 

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Deaf Republic"
by .
Copyright © 2019 Ilya Kaminsky.
Excerpted by permission of GRAYWOLF PRESS.
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Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

We Lived Happily during the War 3

Deaf Republic 5

Dramatis Personae 7

Act 1 The Townspeople Tell the Story of Sonya and Alfonso Gunshot 11

As Soldiers March, Alfonso Covers the Boy's Face with a Newspaper 12

Alfonso, in Snow 13

Deafness, an Insurgency, Begins 14

Alfonso Stands Answerable 15

That Map of Bone and Opened Valves 16

The Townspeople Circle the Boy's Body 17

Of Weddings before the War 18

Still Newlyweds 19

Soldiers Aim at Us 20

Checkpoints 22

Before the War, We Made a Child 23

As Soldiers Choke the Stairwell 24

4 a.m. Bombardment 25

Arrival 26

Lullaby 27

Question 28

While the Child Sleeps, Sonya Undresses 29

A Cigarette 30

A Dog Sniffs 31

What We Cannot Hear 32

Central Square 33

A Widower 34

For His Wife 35

I, This Body 36

Her Dresses 37

Elegy 38

Above Blue Tin Roofs, Deafness 39

A City Like a Guillotine Shivers on Its Way to the Neck 40

In the Bright Sleeve of the Sky 41

To Live 42

The Townspeople Watch Them Take Alfonso 43

Away 44

Eulogy 45

Question 46

Such Is the Story Made of Stubbornness and a Little Air 47

Act 2 The Townspeople Tell the Story of Momma Galya

Townspeople Speak of Galya on Her Green Bicycle 51

When Momma Galya First Protested 52

A Bundle of Laundry 53

What Are Days 54

Galya Whispers, as Anushka Nuzzles 55

Galya's Puppeteers 56

In Bombardment, Galya 57

The Little Bundles 58

Galya's Toast 59

Theater Nights 60

And While Puppeteers Are Arrested 61

Soldiers Don't Like Looking Foolish 62

Search Patrols 63

Lullaby 64

Firing Squad 65

Question 66

Yet, I Am 67

The Trial 68

Pursued by the Men of Vasenka 69

Anonymous 70

And Yet, on Some Nights 71

In a Time of Peace 75

Editorial Reviews

★ 12/17/2018

Kaminsky’s second collection (after 2004’s Dancing in Odessa) is bookended by two poems—“We Lived Happily during the War” and “In a Time of Peace”—ostensibly set in the present and addressing a kind of public blindness to faraway events. What lies between them is a two-part drama composed of short, plainspoken lyrics that envision the military occupation of the fictional town of Vasenka. After the murder of a deaf boy in the public square, the townspeople unite under a strategy of resistance in the form of feigned deafness at any and all of the soldiers’ requests. Part one follows the boy’s cousin, pregnant puppeteer Sonya, and her husband, Alfonso, as they navigate the dangers of deafness and pregnancy under an increasingly belligerent force. Part two follows the owner of the puppet theater as she does the same, as well as Alfonso and Sonya’s infant as she grows into a child. What results is a riveting and emotional story line with parallels to the author’s life, which relies on plain spoken diction, repetition, and small moments of romantic desire to anchor its larger political themes. Moments of brilliance shine through (“Body, they blame you for all things and they/ seek in the body what does not live in the body”), though some readers may feel that the story would be better suited to the stage. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

One of the New York Times's 100 Notable Books of 2019

“These poems bestow the power of sacred drama on a secular martyrology. . . . Kaminsky is wonderfully attentive to . . . repeating patterns of details, contributing to the impression that his book is a through-composed whole, rather than simply a sequence of individual poems. . . . By situating these poems in a country at war, Kaminsky forces the reader to consider both the ways in which we define our social belonging and the loyalties according to which we operate. . . . A visit to this republic will not leave the reader unchanged.”—The New York Times Book Review

“Evident throughout [Deaf Republic] is a profound imagination, matched only by the poet’s ability to create a republic of conscience that is ultimately ours, too, and utterly his own—a map of what it means to live ‘in a peaceful country.’”—Kevin Young, The New Yorker

“Described as a ‘parable in poems,’ Kaminsky’s soulful new collection opens on an act of horrific violence before meditating on silence and deafness in times of political unrest. The language is exquisite; the ethical questions Kaminsky poses are provocative.”—Entertainment Weekly

“Re-envisioning disability as power and silence as singing, Kaminsky has created a searing allegory precisely tuned to our times, a stark appeal to our collective conscience.”—NPR.org

“Cutting-edge.”—The Washington Post

“With lyrical and fearless language, Ilya Kaminsky has written an engrossing page-turner that challenges society’s silence, and celebrates the power of community in the face of violent atrocities.”—The Seattle Times

“Deaf Republic is harrowing and damning, if we dare to listen.”—Vox

“[Deaf Republic] is curved with beautiful oddities of phrase. . . . A play in verse, a novel in verse, collective pain in verse—classifications are unnecessary here, as Kaminsky’s book is at its soul a story. . . . Deaf Republic arrives, textured and alive.”—The Millions

“With Deaf Republic, Kaminsky delivers another stunning achievement.”—Kenyon Review

“The peculiar achievement of Deaf Republic—echoey with calls and responses, song and clamor—is that the whole is not simply greater than its parts: it is their counterargument, their antidote.”—Poetry Magazine

“Within the world of these poems, silence becomes both a foreshadowing and an appeal, as these gaps leave room for the reader to participate in the poems’ revolutionary politics.”—The Brooklyn Rail

“[Deaf Republic] sings with a necessary freshness.”—World Literature Today

“Deaf Republic is nurtured by a commitment to poetry as a form of resistance, dialogue, and a noble spiritual vocation—ethos that hearkens back to poetry’s origins and its power.”—Tablet Magazine

“Breathtaking . . . a highconcept interrogation of individual and civic response to political upheaval and collective action.”—American Poets

“Deaf Republic contains some of the most exquisite lines you’ll find in contemporary poetry.”—New York Journal of Books

“Kaminsky demands that we reevaluate our own language — about deaf culture, about silence itself — in a time when language in the larger, cultural public square has never been more vitriolic. . . . Deaf Republic is a masterfully wrought collection.”—Los Angeles Review of Books

“Kaminsky speaks of our darkest days, of tyranny and death. Yet he sings of the world—of poetry and dance and sex and love—with the highest praise.”—Commonweal Magazine

“Few poets can claim such originality, intensity of feeling and expression, and conscience.”—Blackbird

“Intoxicating and wondrous. . . . In these sincere, striking poems, Kaminsky posits the beauty of this world as essential.”—BookPage

“Deaf Republic is stringent medicine for all nations, especially powerful ones that have grown slack in their apprehension and practice of the ‘categorical imperative.’ With its lapidary, figurative conceits, this poem that weaves in and out of poetry, drama, and prose as a hybrid and liminal tour de force works on both the stage and page as a poignant reminder for our present age of the proverbial dangers of fascism’s recrudescence.”—On the Seawall

“A contemporary masterpiece.”—Washington Examiner

“Kaminsky’s Deaf Republic is both rigorous and profound. Kaminsky reveals himself as a showman of narrative, informed by a deep sense of character and tension, as well as a skillful lyricist, present with each syllable, each letter, each rhythm the breath makes as it darts its ways around his sparse and elegant poems.”—Michigan Quarterly Review

“A bruising, haunting examination of humanity’s paradoxical reserve for great compassion and endless cruelty, Deaf Republic holds an unsettling gaze on how we love amid chaos and despair.”—Carolina Quarterly

“In Kaminsky’s lines, sound takes visible shape. The ordinary things of the world transmogrify, and a small detail, stripped down, takes on the weight of a country.”—The Critical Flame

“Deaf Republic challenges us to think about listening, silence, and communication in a world that regards both violence and joy with dull indifference.”—Barrelhouse

“A riveting and emotional story line with parallels to the author’s life, which relies on plain spoken diction, repetition, and small moments of romantic desire to anchor its larger political themes.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review

“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.”—Library Journal, starred review

“Stunning. . . . At once intimate and sensual but also poignant and timely.”—Booklist, starred review

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