This week “Letters of the Alphabet Go to War” by Lesyk Panasiuk, a book of poems that Katie Farris & I translated from Ukrainian is out from the wonderful Sarabande Books
Lesyk is from Bucha, Ukraine, where some of the worst atrocities of this century took place.
sarabandebooks.org/all-titles/p...Here is a new poem. Already revised, alas. But for what it’s worth:
www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
Many thanks to Jeff Shotts and Kevin Young.
“I saw my people lean—
not toward hope but toward each other.”
—Ilya Kaminsky
“Psalm for the Slightly Tilted”
“This is not / a good year. / But it has / witnesses.”
✨ LETTERS OF THE ALPHABET GO TO WAR by Lesyk Panasiuk, trans. by Ilya Kaminsky & Katie Farris (Jan 20), was praised by World Literature Today (
@worldlittoday.bsky.social) as "modernly, and terrifyingly, Kafkaesque."
Read this timely + essential collection!
www.sarabandebooks.org/all-titles/p...They killed a young poet on a street while a university in Texas forbids teaching Plato (among other things), and president can’t stop talking about buying an island that has no desire to be sold. That was the first week of the year in a strange country getting stranger by the hour, my Horatio.
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Hello from Odesa, Ukraine, friends. An intense 24hours here, ranging from sleepless night of bombardments to a wondrous meeting of poetry with kids at our Poetry Studio (
poemsnotbombs.org) here in Odesa.
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Our Kids Poetry Studio in Odesa is now in its 3rd year & kids, many of whom are refugees of war, are writing beautiful poems. Despite bombardment and sleepless night, they showed up. Here is a link:
poemsnotbombs.org. Please consider donating to support this work.
✨COVER REVEAL!✨ Poetry in translation collection LETTERS OF THE ALPHABET GO TO WAR by acclaimed Ukrainian writer Lesyk Panasiuk, translated by National Book Award finalist poet Ilya Kaminsky (
@ilyakaminsky.bsky.social) and Katie Ferris is available January 2026.
🔗 Preorder link in bio!
Friends, I will be taking time away from social media for a while. Be well.
Vacation
Today I cannot receive you
desperation, disappointment, tough legions of death.
Come by some other time, never,
and leave gallantly your business cards.
Emil Botta, Tr. from Romanian by Liviu Georgesc
When our government is asking to spend millions of dollars on the unnecessary wall instead of very necessary health care plans, these words should be our rallying cry:
"Move disability from the realm of medicine into that of political minorities"
--Rosemarie Garland-Thomson
I went to college in 1997. My mother was a widow, a refugee, and couldn’t help me pay for it. There is no way I would be able to afford college if it was 2025 & the bill US Congress just passed was the law of the land. There are millions of people like me. What a shame.
Everyone is tired of endless images of violence—but if I don’t post this, who will? Since you won’t find it in most Western news: Russia attacked Odesa again, yet another assault this week. “A court martial of a city,” a friend calls it.
“ Write it. Write. In ordinary ink
on ordinary paper: they were given no food,
they all died of hunger. "All. How many?
It's a big meadow….”
Szymborska wrote this after WW2. What changed? Starving people is a war crime. Starving people is a war crime.
t.co/9Elc3lTWudhttps://www.poemhunter.com/poem/hunger-camp-at-jaslo/
Killing people in food lines is a war crime.
Four words, and already we are in Kafka Territory:
"Hey You! Papers, please?"
Overheard:
"Soon, bored with their i-phones, i-pods and other forms of "mini me" which they see as mirrors, and not forms of surveillance -- they will udnerstand: t o remember is to betray a regime built on forgetting. Memory itself becomes a form of rebellion."
overheard:
"In a life-time of a regime, a moment arrives when vulgarity isn’t a personal failing — it’s a state policy. Kitsch is armor against ethics; it’s collective anesthesia, pumped through every glowing screen and marching chant.
Our Kids Poetry Studio in Odesa is in second year and kids, many of whom are refugees of war, are writing poems. If you read Ukrainian, here is the article:
vo.od.ua/rubrics/kult... If you read English, here is a link:
poemsnotbombs.org. Please consider support this work.
Yesterday, Russia unleashed the biggest drone bombardment on Ukraine since war. People died. Meanwhile in Odesa, Ukraine, kids who are refugees of war continue to meet at the poetry studio and write poems—despite attacks on the city.
Please support:
poemsnotbombs.orgOverheard:
“—This isn’t a time for decent people.”
“—When is?”
"Pain and suffering are a kind of currency passed from hand to hand until they reach someone who receives them but does not pass them on."
--Simone Weil
A writing prompt to distract you for a few minutes from the sadness of what we see around us:
“Give to each emotion a personality, to each state of mind a soul”
— Pessoa, 1931
Friends: Katie & I were a part of a team working on a documentary about Viktor, deaf man in war zone in Ukraine. And now you have a chance to see it in NYC & speak to Viktor himself, who will visit from Ukraine:
Sun., May 4
4:30 pm | LeFrak Theater at the American Museum of Natural History
“We knew the war would come.
Still, it caught us unprepared.”
—Szymborska
(from “The End and the Beginning”)
"In our former lives, we have all been earth, stone, dew, wind, fire, moss, tree, insect, fish, turtle, bird and mammal"
--Thich Nhat Hanh (quoting the Buddha)
Orban, Putin, Erdogan….sounds familiar?
Just saying:
Where do songs come from?
From grief too great to banish
—Heine
"When we are a thousand miles away from poetry, we still participate in it by that sudden need to scream—the last stage of lyricism."
--Emil Cioran
It’s over a 100 years after the great Jewish crusader for free speech, Emma Goldman, was deported from USA for her speaking out. Yet history repeats itself.
People shouldn’t be deported for speaking out.
People shouldn’t be deported for speaking out.
We mustn’t stay silent.
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While Trump just stopped all help to Ukraine—Putin’s army attacked Odesa tonight. There are casualties and thousands are sitting without electricity or heat in freezing weather. This is happening right now.
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Meanwhile, our Kids Poetry Studio continues its work—kids who are refugees of war are writing poems, and exploring Odesa. If you would like to learn more about this program, and perhaps support its work, you can find more information at:
www.poemsnotbombs.orgGood afternoon, sister, how is it
In heaven? Quiet, yes?
Without fear and night. We’re
In the basement, talking
Of you, sister.
From a poem by Maryna, 14, written for a children's poetry project run by Ukrainian poet
@ilyakaminsky.bsky.social.
You can donate here
poemsnotbombs.org
#UkraineApropos of *gestures wildly*... I'm prouder than ever to be publishing this important work by Lesyk Panasiuk, who is actively deployed in Ukraine.
This bilingual edition of Lesyk's poetry is translated by Katie Farris &
@ilyakaminsky.bsky.social. 🇺🇦
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While Trump is expressing his admiration for Putin—Putin’s army just bombed a children’s hospital in Odesa, Ukraine.
Friends & beloveds are worried abt what’s coming, from detentions to disruption of healthcare to denial of rights. Friends abroad are terrified too
Know you are not alone. We are here for you—in any way we can
Here is a link to a poem I go to when lost:
www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48501/...The Envoy of Mr. Cogito
Go where those others went to the dark boundary for the golden fleece of nothingness your last prize go upright among those who are on their knees among those with their backs turned and those topple...
In case this is of use for friends in Los Angeles area:
