During times of war and hardship, poetry can offer a particular solace and insight.  In recent weeks, Ilya Kaminsky’s poem “We Lived Happily During the War” has been shared across social media as communities throughout the world have followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Credit: Cybele Knowles/The University of Arizona Poetry Center

Poet, translator, and essayist Ilya Kaminsky will read poems, discuss his award-winning collections “Dancing in Odessa” and “Deaf Republic,” and speak about his new work on Thursday, March 24 at 5 p.m. in the Rhodes-Rawlings Auditorium in Klarman Hall. The event, “The Language of Poetry in a Time of Crisis: A Poetry Reading and Conversation with Ilya Kaminsky,” presented by the Department of Literatures in English in the College of Arts & Sciences, is open to in-person attendance for members of the Cornell community (with Cornell ID). Anyone can livestream the reading. Visit english.cornell.edu/english-events for current guidelines and more information.

Kaminsky emigrated to the United States in 1993 from Odessa, Ukraine with the fall of the Soviet Union. He is a professor at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta where he holds the Margaret T. and Henry C. Bourne, Jr. Chair in Poetry. His work can be found in The Guardian, The New York Times, The Boston Review, The New York Times Magazine, Poetry and The Yale Review. In a recent interview with The Daily Princetonian, Kamiksy said, “We must remember that even in the most difficult situations, people are still able to retain their humanity."

Amanda Brockner is MFA Graduate Program Coordinator in the Department of Literatures in English.

Read the story on the College of Arts and Sciences website.