Who else, historically, made it difficult for people to pursue arts, religion, music, philosophy, education? Authoritarian regimes, in their various forms. Every. Single. One.

The New Republic@newrepublic.com · 2d ago

President Trump is banning students majoring in degrees that don’t make enough money from taking out college loans. Degrees for social work, art, religious studies, teaching aides, and music will be hit the hardest. trib.al/aaAEu6v

This is how we live on earth, a flock of sparrows. The darkness, a magician, finds quarters behind our ears. We don’t know what life is, who makes it, the reality is thick with longing. We put it up to our lips and drink. ~ Ilya Kaminsky, ‘Dancing in Odessa’ (2004) #Painting by Miyake Wakō.

1/2 Friends, while Russia keeps bombing Odesa Ukraine—as recently as last night—the city’s kids continue to write poems at Odesa Poetry Studio. So many of you have supported this project, so I wanted to share: young poet Mikhailo Solovey, is the recipient of Ukrainian Presidential Scholarship

Friends, please contact your representatives and express outrage at this violation of human rights:

ACLU@aclu.org · 3mo ago

BREAKING: The House of Representatives just voted to require teachers to forcibly out transgender youth against their will. Censoring "gender ideology" does nothing to advance the basic promise that every child deserves the same opportunity to thrive, and that includes transgender students.

Writers for Democratic Action event is happening right now on zoom: Major Jackson, Valzhyna Mort, Askold Melnyczuk, Robin Davidson, Ilya Kaminsky, Jo-Ann Mort, Peter Balakian, Roberto Tejada, and Carolyn Forché - 3pm Eastern Time, April 11: zoom.us/meeting/regi...

Welcome! You are invited to join a meeting: Writers for Democratic Action presents Poets Against Voter Suppression. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the meeting.

Please join us during National Poetry Month for an hour reading of poems honoring democracy, in protest against voter suppression and the SAVE Act. Featuring poets Peter Balakian, Robin Davidson, Car...

zoom.us

Friends, today is what they call World Poetry Day. We will hold a zoom fundraiser event today for Kid’s Poetry Studio in Odesa, Ukraine. Here is a link to more info: www.spotfund.com/story/6b9ed1...

1/5 www.spotfund.com/story/6b9ed1...

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.”

newyorker.com

✨ 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.

1/2 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.

✨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/9Elc3lTWud

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.org