WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.590 align:middle line:90% 00:00:02.590 --> 00:00:05.500 align:middle line:84% There's a poet who just got a teaching 00:00:05.500 --> 00:00:09.670 align:middle line:84% job at San Diego State, where I started my teaching career. 00:00:09.670 --> 00:00:11.920 align:middle line:90% His name is Ilya Kaminsky. 00:00:11.920 --> 00:00:15.640 align:middle line:84% Ilya Kaminsky has a book called Dancing in Odessa. 00:00:15.640 --> 00:00:16.840 align:middle line:90% It's a good book. 00:00:16.840 --> 00:00:19.810 align:middle line:84% I met Ilya when he was 19 years old, 00:00:19.810 --> 00:00:23.860 align:middle line:84% and he was just here freshly from Odessa. 00:00:23.860 --> 00:00:28.450 align:middle line:84% And he was completely deaf, without hearing at all. 00:00:28.450 --> 00:00:30.550 align:middle line:84% He had mumps when he was three years old, 00:00:30.550 --> 00:00:33.460 align:middle line:84% and they were not treated well in the Soviet Union. 00:00:33.460 --> 00:00:35.590 align:middle line:90% He lost his hearing completely. 00:00:35.590 --> 00:00:38.290 align:middle line:84% Well, I teach a workshop in the summers at the New York State 00:00:38.290 --> 00:00:39.790 align:middle line:90% Summer Writers Institute. 00:00:39.790 --> 00:00:43.828 align:middle line:84% And you go to the workshop, and everyone introduces themselves. 00:00:43.828 --> 00:00:46.120 align:middle line:84% And in the summer workshops, you get quite a collection 00:00:46.120 --> 00:00:48.130 align:middle line:84% of people from different walks of life 00:00:48.130 --> 00:00:51.100 align:middle line:84% who love poetry and want to write and care about it. 00:00:51.100 --> 00:00:52.720 align:middle line:84% And they all introduce themselves 00:00:52.720 --> 00:00:54.640 align:middle line:84% and say different things about themselves. 00:00:54.640 --> 00:00:56.230 align:middle line:84% And well, I wrote in high school, 00:00:56.230 --> 00:00:59.170 align:middle line:84% and I really haven't been back to it in a long time. 00:00:59.170 --> 00:01:00.790 align:middle line:84% And I really want to go back to it, 00:01:00.790 --> 00:01:03.460 align:middle line:84% so I'm doing so now that I'm retired and so on. 00:01:03.460 --> 00:01:06.250 align:middle line:84% And we got to Ilya around the table. 00:01:06.250 --> 00:01:09.880 align:middle line:84% He was last, and he said, my name is Ilya. 00:01:09.880 --> 00:01:12.580 align:middle line:84% I am from Odessa, former Soviet Union. 00:01:12.580 --> 00:01:16.110 align:middle line:90% I write poetry for God. 00:01:16.110 --> 00:01:19.530 align:middle line:84% So I said, OK, class, let's open our books. 00:01:19.530 --> 00:01:20.490 align:middle line:90% Everyone looked at him. 00:01:20.490 --> 00:01:23.160 align:middle line:84% No one had ever said that before in the introductions. 00:01:23.160 --> 00:01:27.540 align:middle line:84% And he became this sort of angel in my life, 00:01:27.540 --> 00:01:30.030 align:middle line:84% and we studied together for seven years. 00:01:30.030 --> 00:01:33.780 align:middle line:84% And I took him back to Odessa a couple of years 00:01:33.780 --> 00:01:35.820 align:middle line:84% ago because I thought he should go back 00:01:35.820 --> 00:01:39.270 align:middle line:84% and because Odessa had become this dream for him, a dream 00:01:39.270 --> 00:01:39.960 align:middle line:90% city. 00:01:39.960 --> 00:01:44.880 align:middle line:84% And so we went back, and this is a little poem from our time. 00:01:44.880 --> 00:01:47.070 align:middle line:84% I also took him to Saint Petersburg 00:01:47.070 --> 00:01:50.520 align:middle line:84% because this is, for him, the golden city 00:01:50.520 --> 00:01:53.290 align:middle line:84% of the great Russian poets of the 20th century, Anna 00:01:53.290 --> 00:01:56.790 align:middle line:84% Akhmatova, Osip Mandelstam, Marina Tsvetaeva. 00:01:56.790 --> 00:02:02.430 align:middle line:84% So this is about walking in Saint Petersburg and Ilya 00:02:02.430 --> 00:02:03.820 align:middle line:90% talking about it. 00:02:03.820 --> 00:02:08.139 align:middle line:84% "Fisherman," it's called, for Ilya. 00:02:08.139 --> 00:02:09.190 align:middle line:90% "March. 00:02:09.190 --> 00:02:13.600 align:middle line:84% The Neva still white, crisp as communion, 00:02:13.600 --> 00:02:16.750 align:middle line:84% and as we walk its bridges, steadying ourselves 00:02:16.750 --> 00:02:20.680 align:middle line:84% on the glaze, tubes of ice slide from the gutter-spouts 00:02:20.680 --> 00:02:24.190 align:middle line:84% to the astonishment of dogs, some of whom 00:02:24.190 --> 00:02:27.370 align:middle line:84% have not seen spring before, while others 00:02:27.370 --> 00:02:29.380 align:middle line:90% pretend not to remember. 00:02:29.380 --> 00:02:33.670 align:middle line:84% And a woman bends over her late potatoes, sorting and piling, 00:02:33.670 --> 00:02:36.850 align:middle line:84% and you say, in this house lived the friend of my father 00:02:36.850 --> 00:02:39.940 align:middle line:84% who was killed, and in that house lived another 00:02:39.940 --> 00:02:43.360 align:middle line:84% and in this a very bad poet no longer known. 00:02:43.360 --> 00:02:46.180 align:middle line:84% We come to the synagogue and go in, 00:02:46.180 --> 00:02:50.710 align:middle line:84% as far back as a forgotten holiness, where 00:02:50.710 --> 00:02:54.040 align:middle line:84% we are told you can whisper into the wall 00:02:54.040 --> 00:02:56.920 align:middle line:90% and be heard on the other side. 00:02:56.920 --> 00:03:00.790 align:middle line:84% But the rabbi doesn't know you are deaf. 00:03:00.790 --> 00:03:04.070 align:middle line:84% We whisper into the wall to please him. 00:03:04.070 --> 00:03:06.770 align:middle line:84% A sign in Cyrillic asks for donations, 00:03:06.770 --> 00:03:10.400 align:middle line:84% and in exchange, we apparently buy tens 00:03:10.400 --> 00:03:13.470 align:middle line:90% of matzos wrapped in paper. 00:03:13.470 --> 00:03:17.580 align:middle line:84% There are only a hundred of us left in the city. 00:03:17.580 --> 00:03:20.010 align:middle line:84% While we are here, a fisherman waits 00:03:20.010 --> 00:03:22.590 align:middle line:84% on the river, seated with a bucket 00:03:22.590 --> 00:03:26.880 align:middle line:84% beside him, his line in the hole, but in the last hour, 00:03:26.880 --> 00:03:29.880 align:middle line:84% water has surrounded his slab of ice. 00:03:29.880 --> 00:03:33.090 align:middle line:84% So unbeknownst, he is floating downstream, 00:03:33.090 --> 00:03:37.860 align:middle line:84% having caught nothing, cold and delirious with winter thoughts, 00:03:37.860 --> 00:03:43.980 align:middle line:84% as they all are and were, and as for rescue, no one will come. 00:03:43.980 --> 00:03:45.880 align:middle line:90% It is spring. 00:03:45.880 --> 00:03:51.200 align:middle line:84% The Neva white and crisp as communion."