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Ilya Kaminsky: Conversations & Profiles
"...I wrote verses in Russian for quite some time before we came to America. When we came to this country, I was sixteen years old. We settled in Rochester, New York. The question of English being my "preffered language for literature" would have been quite ironic back then, since none of us spoke English -- I myself hardly knew the alphabet. But arriving in Rochester was rather a lucky event -- that place was a magical gift, it was like arriving to a writig colony, a Yaddo of sorts. There was nothing to do except for writing poetry! Why English then -- why not Russian? My father died in 1994, a year after our arrival to America. I understood right away tht it would be impossible for me to write about his death in the Russian language, as one author says in of his deceased father somewhere, "Ah, don't become mere lines of beautiful poetry!" I chose English because no one in my family 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."                                        -- from Interview with Colleen Marie Ryor, Adirondack Review
	'"...the advice which I extracted from him after a great deal of coaxing: 'Wake up! Life is a miracle! We are here for the last time. We must allow the possibilities for magic in our life. The ordinary is beautiful, and frankly, it's all we've got.' It is a hot day when I interview Ilya. Katie, who was delayed in joining us, comes home a bit wilted from her journey and offers us some ice cream. I assure her Ilya has been an excellent host. 'Yes, he practices aggressive hospitality,' she agrees happily, which describes well his persistent and exuberant foisting of Pepperidge Farm cookies at me. Beautiful, young, lithe, Katie goes to fetch the ice cream, and I hear a crash and an exclamation. "There are boks in the freezer!" she shouts in disbelief, and then lets go with a hearty belly laugh. "Kaminsky, it's gone too far!" I find this hilarious. He goes to her, eagerly, to see what can be done with the mess. It is easy, amid talk of magic and daily miracles, to imagine them being forever newlyweds."                                       -- from Profile by Brenna Silberstein in Hastings Independent
"...my third impulse is to say that while poetry does not offer material success, it does offer a form of spiritual satisfaction. But to say that is to lie again--poetry is no easy way to understand why we are here on this planet; there is a lot of internal struggle, necessary and unnecessary conflict, a lot of choking with words. A poet achieves the essential on the page, for a moment, and then that moment is gone. So, let's not idealize this way of walking through the world!"                                       -- from Conversation with Tatyana Mishel in Cranky Literary Journal
"...exile is good for you if you are a poet," Kaminsky says. "It teaches you that loss is also a gain. Of course, it teaches you that by beating you with a hammer on your head. You see your life from a distance; your days become your own commandments. You learn how to start your life anew. Exile (to misquote Auden) 'hurts' you into poetry. So for a poet it is a great gift. But if you write no poetry, it simply hurts."                                        -- from Profile by Eric McHenry in The Seattle Post-Intelligencer
"...he lost most of his hearing at the age of four after a bout with the mumps the Soviet state doctor thought was just a cold. Kaminsky says much of his poetry is inspired by Latin poets -- Horace, Virgin, Propertius, Cattulas and Ovid.'I tend to think of these poets as very contemporary -- their art survived not just their time, but the sensibilities of other times.'...Kaminsky is now studying at University of California's Hastings College of Law. 'Going to law schoo is my small project to see whether a poet can survive outside of the English Department."                                        -- from Profile by Nancy Freiberg in Georgetown Magazine
To read the full text of the interviews, plese click on Adirondack Review, Georgetown Magazine, Hastings Independent, Cranky Literary Journal, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer.