Ilya Kaminsky

Readings

About Ilya Kaminsky's Readings

"Kaminsky reads aloud in the grand Russian tradition with incredible passion. When I saw him read in Seattle, many of the folks in the full-to-capacity auditorium at Seattle Art Museum were weeping ."
--Rebecca Brown, Port Townsend Leader

"Readings of his poetry created such a following for this twenty-seven-year-old writer... Because English is not his first language, because he is deaf, and because he is so passionate, Kaminsky reads so that each word resonates, shaking off connotations and shades of meaning like wolfhound shakes off water. His voice will suddenly soar, at times break into a shout!--before settling back, slowly, at the close of stanza ."
--Jordan Hartt, Experience

"I had the pleasure of hearing Kaminsky read during the Virginia Festival of the Book in Charlottesville this year. He reads with a chanting, theatrical (but not histrionic), ecstatic style that corresponds perfectly with his lilting, comma-connected, paratactic free verse. In the course of a single line he often rose to a shout, descended to a quiet matter-of-factness, and then rose to a shout again. The idiosyncratic hallmarks of Kaminsky’s style—a combination of surrealism, fable and humor—are successful precisely because he uses them toward a specific end. Unlike so much of the style-over-substance “poetry of gesture” that overruns many contemporary journals, Kaminsky’s quirkiness seldom feels contrived. Most importantly, Kaminsky uses this style not as an end to itself, but as a vehicle (and a remarkably lucid one) for telling us something important about our lives."

--Peter Kline, Meridian

"Ilya Kaminsky, a poet who had them crying in the aisles with his reading from his book, 'Dancing in Odessa', (the best poetry reading I have ever attended) ... imagine Czeslaw Milosz at 28, and you begin to get the idea."
--Grant Cogswell, Seattle BelltownMessenger

"A mind-blowing 40 minutes performance" --O Bheal, Cork, Ireland

" poet Ilya Kaminsky impressed the audience with almost prophetic and ecstatic interpretation of his poetry ."
--Ivana Novak, Delo (Slovenia)

"Incredibly fascinating. Unbelievably good."

--Radio Revolt (Norway)

"Kaminsky is renowned for the mesmeric qualities of his live readings which are delivered in a highly emotive Eastern European Shamanistic style"

--Munster Literature Center, Ireland