Ilya Kaminsky talks to Emily Berry

The Poetry Society

In the latest Poetry Review podcast, Emily Berry talks to Ilya Kaminsky, author of the astonishing and internationally acclaimed collection Deaf Republic. Their conversation ranges across political poetry (only in English do people try to divide poetry that is political and not political, everywhere else poetry is political, says Kaminsky), of matching your method to show what it is you see as a writer, about the need to witness the good as well as the bad, and the poet as a private person. Kaminsky, born in the former Soviet Union but now an American citizen, describes his unrequited love for English: “sometimes a stranger can make love to the language a little better than the native person... of course it can also be very awkward too”.